The majority of French people know the law on the end of life, but a minority of them wrote his choices, according to the results of a survey commissioned by the National Center for Palliative and End-of-Life Care at the BVA Institute.
A law known and appreciated by the French
This survey reveals that 85% of general practitioners and 60% of respondents said they knew the law on end of life. In detail, 42% of them know that the law on the end of life allows early choices and 19% know precisely what it is. The best informed French people are executives (28% know exactly what it is), 65-74 year olds (24%) and people with support (20%). The majority (85%) of general practitioners said they were aware that the law on end of life accepts advance directives but only 36% know the precise details.
While the majority of respondents (77%) said that advance directives are an interesting device, a minority of French people (11%) wrote them. We count among them, 13% of women over 75 years and over, 14% of 65-74 years against 8% of 50-64 years).
“Among the French who wrote their advance directives, 71% did so on plain paper, 9% used the model of the Ministry of Health and 15% on another model,” said the survey in a press release. The main reason for their approach is to free their loved ones from the choice to be made for 56% and not to undergo a harsh treatment in the event of illness (50%).
“Even if the percentage is not very high and does not move much, it is not an indication that these directives would be useless”, explained during a conference in Paris the president of this body, Véronique Fournier. .
“We ask technical questions (…) and we see that what people want to talk about is their values,” she concluded.
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The French do not know much about end-of-life devices