Het doel van ‘advance care planning’

This commentary reflects on a study to determine the efficacy of an advance care planning (ACP) website in increasing planning documentation. It is interesting to see that ACP is considered to be a regular intervention. ACP thus ceases to be something to believe in or not and becomes a normal intervention, the efficacy of which can be studied. The study also shows that ACP is a concept which can take many forms, that ACP in itself is almost an umbrella term and that physicians need not take the central role in ACP. The main point of critique of the study, however, is that the endpoint of the study is documentation. One can question whether that is the right objective of ACP as the worth of ACP would seem to lie more in the process of enabling a patient to reflect on treatment goals and personal values than in writing a living will.

Conflict of interest and financial support: potential conflicts of interest have been reported for this article. An ICMJE form provided by the author is available online along with the full text of this article.