JNUR_V1_N2_RP2 Catherine Cummins Michael Prislin Tan Nguyen Jennifer Encinas Franck Vigneron Journal on Nursing 2231 – 4504 1 2 24 28 Advanced Directive, Durable Power of Attorney, Living Will, Schiavo, End-of-Life This study investigates the prevalence of Advance Directives (AD's) in patients between 8-65 years old. AD's evolved from legislation passed by California in 1976, the Natural Death Act which legalized living wills, hoping to maintain the patient's voice in medical decision making. While ample research has been published on the prevalence of AD's in the elderly population, there are few studies that evaluate its use in the younger age group. This research is among the first to retrospectively review AD's in this population. Data was collected on 497 in-patient records to evaluate AD completion and admitting diagnosis. The results of Overall prevalence of AD's was 7.6% and female patients were more likely than male patients to complete an AD. In the younger the age group (18-32), prevalence was as low as 5%. It is concluded that this research is groundbreaking as it demonstrates that the youthful age groups tend to have an even lower prevalence of AD completion than was documented in previous literature. The Implication of the study suggests that increasing AD completion rates for all age groups would improve patient autonomy, nursing management and healthcare delivery. Further nursing research is needed on AD's as well as nursing strategies to reduce barriers to AD completion. May - July 2011 Copyright © 2011 i-manager publications. All rights reserved. i-manager Publications http://www.imanagerpublications.com/Article.aspx?ArticleId=1475