Feasibility of Group Visits for Advance Care Planning Among Patients with Heart Failure and Their Caregivers

Background: Group visits have the potential to help patients identify their health care values and engage in the emotionally and cognitively challenging task of advance care planning (ACP) in a resource-efficient manner by providing a forum for social learning and social support.

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of disease-specific group visits for patients with heart failure and their caregivers.

Design: Feasibility trial of a 90-minute group visit held for 10 separate groups and led by a trained facilitator using the video-based PREPARE for Your Care ACP tool.

Setting:/Subjects: Older adults with recent hospitalization for heart failure (n = 36; median age, 74 years) and their caregivers (n = 21).

Measurements: Pre- and post-visit surveys and a postvisit telephone interview assessing perceived value and acceptability; structured nonparticipant observations to assess process and feasibility.

Results: Mean scores from the postgroup visit evaluation showed that participants reported that they felt comfortable discussing ACP in a group (4.59), understood the information covered (4.70), and were able to identify and clarify their health care values (4.43). Interview and observation data demonstrated that participants were able to identify and clarify their preferences by listening and learning from a diverse range of perspectives in the group and that the disease-focused nature of the group visit created a supportive space for participants to share their experiences.

Conclusions: Disease-focused ACP group visits were feasible to conduct and acceptable to participants, underscoring their value as an efficient intervention to engage patients and caregivers in the otherwise time- and resource-intensive task of ACP.