End of Life Planning Does Not Make Cancer Patients Hopeless or Anxious

January 5, 2015

(Reuters) – For a small group of advanced cancer patients, using an online tool for learning about end-of-life medical decisions and developing an advance directive document did not lead to psychological distress, according to a new study. “One thing we noticed is that many patients with advanced cancer had not had these conversations,” said lead author Dr. Michael J. Green of the humanities and medicine departments at Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania.