A Study on Awareness of Life-Sustaining Treatment Decision System and Advance Directives, and Comparative Analysis by Socio-demographic Factors

Purpose: This study aims to conduct research on the current status regarding the Life-Sustaining Treatment Decision System and Advance Directives in Korea and to investigate and organize relevant data, and review the main contents and tasks of the 1st and 2nd Hospice and Palliative Care Comprehensive Plans. In addition, I plan to conduct a survey targeting general adults to investigate their awareness of the Advance Directive for Life-Sustaining and to compare the awareness levels across different socio-demographic factors such as gender and age. Method: A survey was conducted on the awareness of the general public in their 10s to 50s living in the metropolitan area and analyzed. In this study, SPSS 25.0 was used to analyze the relationship between recognition frequency and survey items and socio-demographic factors, using frequency analysis, descriptive statistical analysis, and cross-analysis. Results: Awareness of the life-sustaining treatment system and advance directives appeared to be less than half of the respondents. As many as 90.3% of respondents had no experience in exploring the life-sustaining treatment system and advance directives. Additionally, more than half of the respondents had a negative attitude toward the life-sustaining treatment system. There was a difference in the willingness of the person and their parents to write an advance directive for life-sustaining treatment, showing that the family's decision is still a more important factor than the decision of the elderly person himself. Comparative analysis of differences by socio-demographic factors showed statistically significant differences in most items. Conclusion: As a result of the study, it was found that there is an urgent need for education to increase awareness of the life-sustaining treatment decision system and advance directives, and it is hoped that future research will also be conducted on people over 60 years of age to conduct more specific and in-depth research.