title: The role of mediation in advance care planning and end-of-life care.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  General practitioners (GPs) play a key role in advance care planning (ACP), but face a number of difficulties in implementing ACP in routine practice, including fear of disputes involving the patient's family members. The interest-based negotiation approach employed by professional mediators may be a useful way of eliciting patients' and their family members' interests in ACP discussions, and establishing agreement and commitment to an advance care plan.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This article introduces the key skill set of professional mediators, examines how this approach can be employed in general practice and presents an 'interest mapping tool' to assist the GP in managing ACP discussions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Interest-based negotiation differentiates between a person's stated position and the interests underlying that position. By eliciting interests, the GP gains deeper insight into the factors driving patients' and their family members' preferences, and can identify shared interests as a basis for establishing agreement.
authors.forename: Craig
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sinclair
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Davidson
authors.forename: Kirsten
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Aure
mesh_terms: D032722:Advance Care Planning; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D058005:General Practitioners / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D017008:Negotiating / Q000379:methods*; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D013727:Terminal Care / Q000379:methods*