ABSTRACT
End of life decisions are those that are made for the individual’s last period of life, and such decisions may apply to all aspects of an individual’s living and dying during that period.
Over the past two decades, well over a thousand empirical and conceptual articles have been published concerning end-of-life decisions and advance directives, in addition to numerous books. Clearly, a thorough review of this material is beyond the scope of this chapter; the reader is referred to reviews by Cicirelli (2001) and Kleespies (2004),
and to George’s (2002) methodological critique. The approach here is to give the reader some appreciation of existing research on the various types of end-of-life decisions and the use of advance directives. Also, end-of-life decisions, as influenced by religious, spiritual, and existential beliefs, will be considered as a general coping strategy for dealing with death anxiety, preparing oneself for death, and attaining a good death.
