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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2023 Jun 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Med Ethics. 2011 Jun 22;38(2):77–82. doi: 10.1136/jme.2010.040618

Table 1.

Patient characteristics (N=8308)*

Characteristics N (%)
Demographic characteristics
 Sex
  Male 3338 (40)
  Female 4959 (60)
 Race/ethnicity
  White 1644 (20)
  Black/African-American 6066 (73)
  Hispanic/Latino 201 (2)
  Other 348 (4)
 Married
  No 5794 (70)
  Yes 2461 (30)
 Education level
  No high school diploma 1791 (22)
  High school diploma 2535 (32)
  Some university or junior university 2180 (27)
  University or postgraduate degree 1535 (19)
Religious characteristics
 Attendance at religious services
  Never 1720 (22)
  Less than once a week 3491 (44)
  Once a week or more 2767 (35)
 Tries hard to carry religious beliefs into all other dealings in life
  Disagree 1171 (15)
  Agree 2720 (35)
  Strongly agree 3914 (50)
 Self-reported spirituality
  Slightly/not at all spiritual 1578 (20)
  Moderately spiritual 3211 (40)
  Very spiritual 3206 (40)
Measures of health status
 Charlson Comorbidity Index
  0 2770 (35)
  1 1456 (18)
  2 1316 (17)
  3 1246 (16)
  4+ 1126 (14)
 Self-reported health rating
  81–100 978 (12)
  61–80 2250 (29)
  41–60 2587 (33)
  21–40 1149 (15)
  0–20 906 (12)
 Vulnerable Elder Score
  0–3 3098 (67)
  4–7 1182 (25)
  8–11 363 (8)
*

N counts do not always sum to 8308 because of partial non-response. Except where indicated, ‘not apply’ and ‘do not know’ responses are counted as missing.