KNOWLEDGE IN SPAIN ON THE ADVANCE DIRECTIVES

Abstract

The article presents and analyses the knowledge and
attitudes of the users, physicians and nurses on the official documents and guidelines on advance directives in
one administrative area of Madrid. To this purpose a
descriptive transversal study has taken place during the
year 2010-2012, using two questionnaires, one for the
users and one for the health workers. The questionnaires
had been filled by 317 users and by 325 health workers
(physicians and nurses). The results have shown that the
knowledge on the advance directives is very poor in
Spain both at the level of the health workers as, and in
particular, at the level of the users. It would be necessary
to improve the education on this subject of the health
workers and the information and sensitization of the
users.