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Predicting Young Adults’ Engagement in Advance Care Planning

Szalai, Leah C.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1448056006

Abstract Details

2015, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, Communication Studies (Communication).
Advance care planning (i.e., the process by which individuals identify life- sustaining treatment preferences; ACP) is frequently targeted to older adult and terminally ill populations. This is a shortcoming because young adults are also at risk for sudden illness and traumatic injury, and making advance care plans prior to becoming ill may make decision-making easier for both individuals and their families. As such, this dissertation views ACP as life-long process that should begin when individuals are young adults. Because ACP is often perceived as a difficult conversation and individuals are reluctant to engage in it, it is important to understand the individual and relational factors that affect young adults’ intent to have ACP conversations. This dissertation advances health communication research by developing the difficult conversation model (DCM) that bridges components of the theory of planned behavior, the health belief model, and the disclosure decision-making model. The following dissertation reports three studies that build upon one another to finally assess the proposed DCM model. The first step in building and evaluating this model was formative research. Formative research allowed for both the exploration of anticipated individual motivating factors as well as the discovery of unanticipated individual and relational factors. Results of the focus groups showed that relational factors do play a part in individuals’ intent to communicate about ACP. In Study 1, I applied the findings of the focus groups by testing several of the individual and relational factors for the model. Study 2 was an extension of Study 1, in which I added the remaining individual and relational factors, and the DCM was developed and assessed. The results of Study 2 indicated that barriers, severity, anticipated response, attitude, perceived behavioral control, and cues to action affect young adults’ intent to have ACP conversations. Several interesting mediations were also revealed.
Amy Chadwick, Dr. (Advisor)
Charee Thompson, Dr. (Committee Co-Chair)
164 p.
Communication
behavioral change; advance care planning; disclosure decision-making; theory of planned behavior; health belief model

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Szalai, L. C. (2015). Predicting Young Adults’ Engagement in Advance Care Planning [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1448056006

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Szalai, Leah. Predicting Young Adults’ Engagement in Advance Care Planning. 2015. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1448056006.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Szalai, Leah. "Predicting Young Adults’ Engagement in Advance Care Planning." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1448056006

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ohiou1448056006
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© 2015, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.