Table 2.
Hospice care and LST awareness and preferences among participants (n = 992).
| Variables | Category | n (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Heard of hospice care | Yes | 279 (28.1) |
| No | 713 (71.9) | |
| If you were diagnosed with a terminal illness, would you like to accept hospice care? | Yes, I want hospice care to give me comfort even if it cannot prolong my life | 905 (91.2) |
| No, I want active LST to prolong my life as much as possible even it brings pain and discomfort | 87 (8.8) | |
| Heard of LST, an active medical therapy, which has the potential to postpone patients’ death, but cannot recover health and would bring pain or discomfort | Yes | 623 (62.8) |
| No | 369 (37.2) | |
| If you were in a severe condition in which LST (e.g., mechanical ventilation, feeding tube) could not recover your health, and you might even have to rely on it in the long term to prolong your life, would you like to accept it? | Yes | 110 (11.1) |
| No | 882 (88.9) | |
| Reasons for accepting LST (may choose more than one answer) * | I couldn’t bear to leave my family | 74 (67.3) |
| Try if there is a chance | 38 (34.5) | |
| I want to live longer | 33 (30.0) | |
| Others | 10 (9.2) | |
| Reasons for rejecting LST (may choose more than one answer) a | To avoid of burdening the family | 628 (71.2) |
| The treatments are too painful | 568 (64.4) | |
| The effects of treatments are too limited | 480 (54.4) | |
| Too many sequelae from treatments | 218 (24.7) | |
| I’ve lived long enough | 36 (4.1) | |
| Others | 56 (6.2) |
* n = 110 for only those who accepted LST, a n = 882 for only those who rejected LST. Abbreviation: LST, life-sustaining treatment.