Advance Directive Study

(For Student-Parent Pairs )

Registration is closed for this study. We have all the participants we need.

Some information about the study:

Participant requirements

This is a study for student-parent pairs.

You must be a student enrolled in Dr. Chapman’s Health Psychology class ( 830: 377: 02 & 03) at Rutgers University in the Fall 2004 semester.

You must have a parent who is willing to participate in the study with you. Alternatively, the "parent" role can be played by another relative. This relative must be at least 15 years older than you and have lived with you for at least 10 years.

What is this study about?

An advance directive ( living will) is a document in which a person expresses her or his preferences for medical treatment. If the person is later unable to make medical decisions for herself or himself, family members and doctors can use this document to guide their treatment decisions on behalf of the incapacitated person.

The goal of this study is to assess the effectiveness of living wills. How well do living wills allow people to communicate their treatment preferences to relatives? How accurate are relatives in judging what the patient's preferences would be?

Study Procedure

Your parent will be mailed a questionnaire packet to be completed at home. The packet will consist of a detailed description of this study, a living will form to be completed, and a few questionnaires regarding medical treatment preferences in hypothetical end-of-life situations. Completion takes about 60 minutes. Parents will then mail their packet back to us.
Once parent packets have been received, you will be given (either through the mail or in class) a student packet to be completed on your own time. Some students will receive their parent’s living will to read; others will not. You will be asked to predict your parent’s medical treatment preferences in hypothetical end of life situations. You will also complete a few other questionnaires. Completion takes about 60 minutes. You will then mail your packet back to us.
Students and parents should not discuss their responses with one another until after both have returned their completed questionnaire packets.

Rewards for participating in the study

For every 5 student-parent pairs who complete the study, one pair will be randomly selected to win a prize. If you are part of a winning pair, you and your parent will each receive a $50 gift certificate to Barnes and Nobles book store (good a local stores and on line) or to Amazon.com (good on line). (Which kind of certificate you get depends on what we have in stock at the time.)
In addition, you and your parent will receive a summary of your questionnaire responses, showing where you agreed and disagreed on preferences for end-of-life treatment. We hope that this feedback will help facilitate family discussions of planning for end-of-life care.

More information (optional)

Parent information sheet <pdf file>
Student information sheet <pdf file>

Registration is closed for this study. We have all the participants we need.

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This study is being conducted by Gretchen Chapman, Associate Professor of Psychology, Rutgers University, 152 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway NJ 08854-8020, (732) 445-2640, gbc@rci.rutgers.edu.

This study has been approved by the Rutgers IRB, protocol #03-045M.