Page 3 - 20191216_ViewsOnConsultationDocumentEOLCare

discussed in paragraph 1.2.

1.2. Limited public understanding of advance directives

Consultation Question 7

Legally, there is no limitation for healthy individuals signing an advance directive. Do
you agree that the public is sufficiently aware of the pros and cons of making an
advance directive when healthy?

Our Hong Kong Foundation [ ] Agree [✔] Disagree

Despite the promising reception of the concept of ADs observed among the general public, in
existing studies, such preferences were only revealed when further information about ADs was
provided. Specifically, 81.4% (Chan et al., 2019), 85.7% (Chung et al., 2017) and 81.5%
(JCECC, 2016) of respondents to aforementioned research, respectively, had not heard of ADs.

The low level of awareness of ADs and other end-of-life concepts is a widely recognised
phenomenon in Hong Kong, triggering concerns over public knowledge of relevant decision
making. According findings from OHKF’s recent study, 55.1% of respondents regarded
themselves to have limited, little, nil or uncertain confidence in managing EoLC and its
associated arrangements; furthermore, only 33.6% felt that they understood the concept of ADs
(OHKF, 2019a). These raise critical concerns over the public’s ability to evaluate the pros and
cons of making an AD and points to the need to further equip our citizens with required
knowledge for such considerations.

Furthermore, our study revealed that 19.4% of respondents were never informed about end-of-
life services available in community settings. The remaining respondents usually obtained
information from scattered sources, the most popular source being medical professionals in
hospitals (32.2%) (OHKF 2019a). OHKF suggests that other channels, such as medical
professionals in community settings including nurses and social workers, could be further
mobilised as importance sources of information for citizens. Promoting health literacy and
empowering citizens require mindful planning that shifts burden away from hospitals
whilst levering upon community resources.

3