Advance care planning for patients with COPD: past, present and future

Objective: To discuss the importance, current status and directions for improvement of advance care planning and communication about end-of-life care for patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

Methods: Narrative review of the currently available literature regarding advance care planning and communication about end-of-life care in COPD.

Results: Advance care planning, including patient-clinician communication about end-of-life care, can improve outcomes for patients and their families and may be particularly important for patients with COPD. Patient-clinician communication is needed to inform and prepare patients about their diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, and what dying might be like. It is necessary to help patients and their clinicians understand patient preferences for life-sustaining treatments. Despite these advantages, advance care planning and conversations about end-of-life care in current practice are limited and their quality is often poor.

Conclusion: Advance care planning can improve outcomes for patients and their relatives. Recent studies provide directions for how to facilitate advance care planning for patients with COPD.

Practice implications: Advance care planning ought to be part of care for patients with advanced COPD. Future studies should focus on interventions to facilitate advance care planning in patients with COPD with the goal of improving the quality of end-of-life care.