The development of a questionnaire to assess the attitudes of older people to end-of-life issues (AEOLI).
OBJECTIVE
To develop an end-of-life attitudes questionnaire for use in a large community-based sample of older people.


METHODS
Nominal groups and standardization of questions.


METHODS
Eighteen older people, ten academics and five specialist palliative care health professionals were involved in nominal groups. Thirty older people took part in initial pilot work and a further 50 were involved in reliability testing.


RESULTS
A 27-item attitudes of older people to end-of-life issues (AEOLI) questionnaire.


CONCLUSIONS
In modern times, death and dying predominantly occurs among older people and yet we know very little about older people's attitudes to end-of-life care. The AEOLI questionnaire can be used in large scale surveys to elicit attitudes on end-of life issues considered important by older people and health care professionals.
Catt
Susan
S
Department of Mental Health Sciences, University College, London, UK. m.blanchard@medsch.ucl.ac.uk
Blanchard
Martin
M
Addington-Hall
Julia
J
Zis
Maria
M
Blizard
Bob
B
King
Michael
M
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001293:Attitude to Death; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006299:Health Services for the Aged / Q000458:organization & administration; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010865:Pilot Projects; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D019452:Terminally Ill / Q000523:psychology*