Advance Care Planning in the African American Faith Community: Taking Fear out of the Conversation

Introduction: Advance Care Planning (ACP) helps individuals decide about future care by reviewing their values, goals, and wishes. Conducting ACP education in the African American community's place of worship and enlisting the pastor's support is a way to develop trust among parishioners. This scholarly project seeks to increase understanding of advance care planning and encourage participants to complete advance directives.

Methods: The project offered two educational sessions and administered pre- and post-survey questionnaires to assess readiness to discuss advance care planning and complete advance directive documents.

Results: The readiness to sign official papers naming a person or group of people to make medical decisions and talk to their decision-maker about the kind of medical care they would want if they were very sick or near the end of life, was significantly greater post-survey than pre-survey. Readiness to talk to their doctor about the kind of medical care and sign official papers was significantly greater post-survey compared to pre-survey. The project rendered four completed advance directives representing 11% of participants.

Conclusion: The educational intervention provided knowledge about advance care planning and supported further sessions in the African American church.