Advance care planning websites for dementia should provide information and fa-cilitate communication in a use-friendly manner
Guidance
An advance care planning website for people with dementia and their family caregivers should focus on providing information and facilitating communication, provided in a user-friendly manner.
Explanation and Examples:
Advance care planning is a process that enables individuals to define goals and preferences for their future care. Digital interactive tools, such as websites, that encourage reflection, communication and/or documentation, may support this group in the advance care planning process. However, considering the specific needs of people with dementia, it is important to develop tools that are adapted to this population. We conducted focus groups with family caregivers (serving both as potential users and proxies for people with dementia) and healthcare professionals caring for people with dementia, to determine their needs in terms of content of the advance care planning website and how this should be delivered. Some specific recommendations included:
- An advance care planning website should focus on providing advance care planning information, including but not limited to advance directives, and offer guidance on how to start an ACP conversation.
- To increase the accessibility and usability of the ACP website, the inclusion of a text-to-speech option, a print option, and the possibility to increase the font size should be considered.
Type of evidence
Focus groups with family caregivers and health professionals
References
Dupont, C., Smets, T., Monnet, F., Pivodic, L., De Vleminck, A., Van Audenhove, C., & Van den Block, L. Defining the content of a website on ACP in dementia: a focus group study with family and health professionals (Submitted in June 2022 to BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making)