Planning for Serious Illness amongst Community-Dwelling Older Adults

Table 3

Adjusted¹ associations between respondent characteristics and serious illness planning behaviors.

	Discussed treatment wishes	Discussed unacceptable conditions	Designated substituted decision-maker	LW or ACP completed
	OR (95% CI)	OR (95% CI)	OR (95% CI)	OR (95% CI)
Sex
Female	2.05^‡	1.25	1.21	1.47
(ref: male)	(1.16–3.62)	(0.72–2.18)	(0.70–2.09)	(0.77–2.80)
Age
≥65 years	1.75	1.23	2.30^‡	1.86
(ref: <65 years)	(0.98–3.11)	(0.71–2.13)	(1.32–3.99)	(0.99–3.50)
Education
Some post-secondary education	1.26	1.59	0.93	0.98
(ref: ≤High school)	(0.60–2.65)	(0.76–3.29)	(0.45–1.93)	(0.41–2.33)
Completed post- secondary	1.64	1.72	0.70	0.79
(ref: ≤High school)	(0.7–3.81)	(0.75–3.92)	(0.30–1.60)	(0.29–2.13)
Annual personal income
≥$60,000 (ref: <$60,000)	0.62 (0.31–1.22)	0.84 (0.43–1.61)	1.04 (0.54–2.00)	0.56 (0.26–1.21)
Unspecified (ref: <$60,000)	0.59 (0.29–1.26)	0.82 (0.41–1.62)	0.87 (0.44–1.71)	0.86 (0.40–1.85)
Rural residence (ref: urban)	0.83 (0.48–1.42)	0.86 (0.51–1.45)	0.65 (0.38–1.09)	0.47^†  (0.25–0.86)
Health conditions
1-2 conditions	1.14	0.81	1.06	1.05
(ref: 0 conditions)	(0.53–2.49)	(0.38–1.72)	(0.50–2.29)	(0.42–2.60)
3 or more conditions	1.20	1.30	0.96	0.85
(ref: 0 conditions)	(0.60–2.40)	(0.66–2.59)	(0.47–1.89)	(0.37–1.92)
Value
Important to plan for care	1.67	1.24	2.32^†	4.31*
(ref: not important)	(0.87–3.19)	(0.64–2.41)	(1.15–4.70)	(1.42–13.07)
Knowledge of ACP
Understood term	3.45^∧	5.62^∧	2.49^‡	9.87^∧
(ref: not familiar)	(1.87–6.34)	(2.90–10.92)	(1.87–6.34)	(2.90–33.50)

1Adjusted for each of the variables listed in the table.
* 𝑃<0.10.
^†𝑃<0.05.
^‡𝑃<0.01.
^∧𝑃<0.001.