Information seeking and compliance in planning for critical care: community-based health outreach to seniors about advance directives.

This field experiment in 3 states investigated factors that encourage seniors to explore critical-care choices and to complete an advance directive when approached through a community-based outreach. The intervention featured a detailed, home-based guide and subsequent telephone counseling. Seniors were contacted through established community organizations such as church or service groups, residential centers, and retirement associations. Results disclosed the importance of cognitive variables (participants' sense of a future vulnerable self and efficacy of advance planning for care) in explaining which seniors requested a guide. Compliance in completing a directive, however, depended solely on different patterns of reading the guide and talking about critical care. Neither information seeking nor completing a directive correlated with participants' actual health status.