In the study “Effectiveness of end-of-life education among community-dwelling older adults” Matsui (2010) addresses the problem that fewer than “50% of severely or terminally ill patients completed an advance directive” (p. 363) which makes it difficult for health care professionals to identify patients’ wishes in situations where end of life is near. This is a significant problem to nursing, as nurses have a responsibility to inform and educate patients about health care directives, and options for end-of-life care as well as facilitate appropriate end of life care according to patient preferences.
Compounding this research problem Matsui (2010) explains that although much discussion has occurred regarding advance directives, there is a lack of consensus of the Japanese people regarding the importance and necessity of advance directives and they are not yet considered a legal documents in Japan. Matsui (2010) stresses the importance and need for discussions regarding end-of-life care are needed to clearly …show more content…
The type of quasi-experimental design that is implemented is the nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design. 60 participants were recruited from three units and were allocated into the intervention group, 61 participants were recruited from six sites and allocated to the control group. The researchers administered questionnaires to both groups before and after the intervention. The rationale for using a quasi-experimental design is not clearly stated in the research study. The quasi-experimental design alleviates some stress from participants by excluding the randomization of treatment and control groups. Therefore the design does broaden the group available to participate in the study. The design is appropriate for the purpose of evaluating the effectiveness of an educational intervention regarding end-of-life