Table 4.

Reasons why respondents want their DPA [family] or their doctors to make treatment decisions in the event of incapacity

Reason	N
1. DPA [family] knows my preferences	278
2. Trust DPA [family] to make the decision the patient would want or the best decision	187
3. DPA [family] knows me	165
4. DPA [family] knows my interests	127
5. Doctors have medical knowledge	77
6. General impact on my DPA [family]	65
7. DPA [family] has standing	61
8. DPA [family] has medical knowledge	32
9. DPA [family] does not understand	31
10. I do not trust doctors	29
11. Minimize psychological impact	29
12. DPA [family] is too emotional	27
13. Trust doctors to do what is best	25
14. Will lead to better decisions	23
15. Other	22
16. Doctors do not know me	19
17. Minimize burden on DPA [family]	18
18. Doctors know interests	12
19. Do not trust DPA [family]	12
20. Doctors do not know my preferences	9
21. DPA [family] does not know me	8
22. Religious reasons	5
23. Trust doctors to follow my preferences	5
24. DPA [family] does not know my preferences	3

484 respondents provided one reason, 282 provided 2 reasons, 71 provided 3 reasons, 13 provided 4 reasons and 3 respondents provided 5 reasons. Thus, there were a total of 1328 reasons given by 853 respondents; 42 of the responses were judged to be not interpretable and 17 were judged as not answering the question, leaving 1269 for analysis.