Nurses in palliative care provide both physical and emotional... Nurses in palliative care provide both physical and emotional support to dying persons and their families. The aim of this assessment...

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Advanced Care Planning and End-of-Life Care
The Effects of ACP
The impacts of ACP (advance care planning) are poorly defined. ACP can prove to be supportive to the patient and his/her family, especially when provided in an outpatient setting, but uptake tends to be less. A patient who has an advance-care plan is more inclined to have his/her end-of-life care choices respected and known (Chan et al., 2018). ACP promotes patients' quality of life while also reducing anxiety, depression, and stress in family members. Systematic evaluations on the influence of Advanced Care Planning on patients have indicated that individuals who participate in conversations regarding their care towards the end of life gain from the procedure, do not feel hopeless, and thus do not experience excessive wo
y (Dixon et al., 2018).
Only two trials, both of low to intermediate quality, revealed that ACP increased patient and family members' satisfaction and decreased hospital occupancy. ACP has been shown to increase heart failure patients' satisfaction along with end-of-life treatment as well as communication regarding end-of-life care. In a study, patients, as well as their friends and family, consistently reported that communication with medical professionals has a significant influence on their end-of-life lung cancer experience (Fulmer et al., 2018). Families of intervention groups of patients who passed away had less emotional trauma. ACP decreased manifestations of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder in family members considerably. Moreover, families of intervention groups of patients were more prone to be rather satisfied with the patient's death quality and to believe that the patients might be satisfied with the manner of death as well. Thus, patients place high importance on being informed about treatment options and being engaged in care decisions (Go-Coloma, 2018).
Ethical Decision Making in ACP
ACP reflects ethical attributes such as self-determination and autonomy by supporting people's preferences whenever they have been unable to communicate for themselves. Evidence suggests that preserving autonomy in advanced care planning considers not just making the decisions and choices regarding care and treatment, but also enabling patients to engage in everyday activities, contribute to others, and effectively plan for death (Dixon et al., 2018). The conventional principle of autonomy as the power to build an autonomous reasonable decision may not even be appropriate for patients receiving palliative care. Thus,...