Getting Affairs in Order: Influences of Social Support and Religious Coping on End-of-Life Planning Among Open-Heart Surgery Patients

Despite growing interest in end-of-life issues, little research has been done concerning end-of-life plans made by patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD), a disease that constitutes the highest mortality in the United States. Even less information is available on patients who undergo major cardiac surgery, a life-altering procedure with some risk of death, in terms of their engagement in end-of-life planning (EOLP). This prospective study enabled the contributors to explore EOLP among 309 middle-aged and older open-heart surgery patients, using survey data from three sequential interviews. A hierarchical logistic regression model shows that older age, higher education, greater social support, and negative religious coping were positively related to the likelihood of engaging in EOLP. Minority race was inversely related to EOLP. Findings suggest the potential role for social workers in helping cardiac patients to access social spiritual resources, and to consider engagement in EOLP. (C) 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.