Racial Disparities in Health Beliefs and Advance Care Planning Among Patients Receiving Maintenance Dialysis.

CONTEXT: Among people receiving maintenance dialysis, little is known about racial disparities in the occurrence of prognostic discussions, beliefs about future health, and completion of advance care planning (ACP) documents. OBJECTIVES: We examined whether Black patients receiving maintenance dialysis differ from White patients in prognostic discussions, beliefs about future health, and completion of ACP-related documents. METHODS: We surveyed adult patients receiving maintenance dialysis from seven dialysis units in Cleveland, Ohio, and hospitalized patients at a tertiary care hospital in Cleveland. Of the 450 patients who were asked to participate in the study, 423 (94%) agreed. We restricted the current secondary analyses to include only Black (n=285) and White (n=114) patients. The survey assessed patients' knowledge of their kidney disease, attitudes toward chronic kidney disease (CKD) treatment, preferences for end-of-life (EoL) care, the patient-reported occurrence of prognostic discussions, experiences with kidney therapy decision making, sentiments of dialysis regret, beliefs about health over the next 12 months, and advance care planning. We used stepwise logistic regression to determine if race was associated with the occurrence of prognostic discussions, beliefs about future health, and completion of an ACP-related document, while controlling for potential confounders. RESULTS: We found no significant difference in the frequency of prognostic discussions between Black (11.9%) versus White patients (7%) (P=0.15). However, Black patients (19%) had lower odds of believing that their health would worsen over the next 12 months (OR 0.22, CI 0.12, 0.44) and reporting completion of any ACP-related document (OR 0.5, CI 0.32, 0.81) compared to White patients CONCLUSION: Racial differences exist in beliefs about future health and completion of ACP-related documents. Systemic efforts to investigate differences in health beliefs and address racial disparities in the completion of ACP-related documents are needed.

Variability and Potential Determinants of Assisted Living State Regulatory Stringency.

OBJECTIVES: We examined state variations in assisted living (AL) regulatory policies for admission/retention, staffing/training, medication management, and dementia care. Factors associated with domain-specific and overall regulatory stringency were identified. DESIGN: This observational study used the following data sources: 2019 review of state AL regulations; 2019 national inventory of AL communities; 2014 Government Accountability Office survey of Medicaid agencies; 2016 Genworth Cost of Care Survey; and the 2018 Nursing Home Compare. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Final analyses included 46 states (excluding Alaska, Kentucky, Louisiana, and West Virginia) and the District of Columbia. METHODS: For each regulatory domain of interest (dependent variables), we generated policy scores by conducting content analysis of state regulatory databases. States were assigned points for presence of each policy (eg, staff training). The number of points assigned to each policy was divided by the total possible number of policy-related points, producing state stringency scores (between 0% and 100%) for each policy domain. Independent variables included market-level characteristics (eg, AL monthly cost), state generosity (eg, proportion of Medicaid aged using AL services), quality of care (eg, percent of nursing homes with few deficiencies), and others. Descriptive analyses and multivariable logistic regression models with stepwise selection were used. RESULTS: We found significant variations in all policy domains across states. No single policy appeared to clearly dominate a state's rank. AL bed supply, monthly AL cost, proportion of Medicaid beneficiaries receiving AL services, and other variables were significantly associated with regulatory stringency of the domains examined. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: There were substantial variations in regulatory stringency across states. Several market and state generosity measures were identified as potential determinants of stringency, but the direction of these associations appeared to depend on what was being regulated. Future studies should examine how regulatory stringency affects access to and care quality in ALs.

Dialysis Regret: Prevalence and Correlates.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Although some patients regret the decision to start dialysis, modifiable factors associated with regret have rarely been studied. We aimed to identify factors associated with patients' regret to initiate dialysis. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS: A 41-item questionnaire was administered to adult patients receiving maintenance dialysis in seven dialysis units located in Cleveland, Ohio, and its suburbs. Of the 450 patients asked to participate in the study, 423 agreed and 397 provided data on decisional regret. We used multivariable logistic regression to identify predictors of regret, which was assessed using a single item, "Do you regret your decision to start dialysis?" We report adjusted odd ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) for the following candidate predictors: knowledge of CKD, attitudes toward CKD treatment, and preference for end-of-life care. RESULTS: Eighty-two of 397 respondents (21%) reported decisional regret. There were no significant demographic correlates of regret. Regret was more common when patients reported choosing dialysis to please doctors or family members (OR, 2.34; 95% CI, 1.27 to 4.31; P<0.001). Patients who reported having a prognostic discussion about life expectancy with their doctors (OR, 0.42; 95% CI, 0.18 to 0.98; P=0.03) and those who had completed a living will (OR, 0.48; 95% CI, 0.25 to 0.95; P=0.03) were less likely to report regret with dialysis initiation. CONCLUSIONS: Dialysis regret was common in this sample. Demographic factors (age, sex, marital status, race, or educational attainment) were not significantly associated with regret, but modifiable care processes were. PODCAST: This article contains a podcast at https://www.asn-online.org/media/podcast/CJASN/2020_06_09_CJN13781119.mp3.

Associations of Caregiver-Oncologist Discordance in Prognostic Understanding With Caregiver-Reported Therapeutic Alliance and Anxiety.

CONTEXT: Discordance in prognostic understanding between caregivers of adults with advanced cancer and the oncologist may shape caregivers' views of the oncologist and bereavement outcomes. OBJECTIVES: We examined prospective associations of caregiver-oncologist discordance with caregiver-oncologist therapeutic alliance and caregiver anxiety after patient death. METHODS: We conducted a secondary analysis of data collected in a cluster randomized controlled trial from August 2012 to June 2014 in Western New York and California. At enrollment, caregivers and oncologists used a seven-point scale to rate their beliefs about the patient's curability and living two years or more: 100%, about 90%, about 75%, about 50 of 50, about 25%, about 10%, and 0%. Discordance was defined as a difference of two points or more. Outcomes at seven months after patient death included caregiver-oncologist therapeutic alliance (The Human Connection scale, modified into five items) and caregiver anxiety (Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7). We conducted multivariable linear regression models to assess the independent associations of discordance with alliance and anxiety. RESULTS: We included 97 caregivers (mean age 63) and 38 oncologists; 41% of caregiver-oncologist dyads had discordant beliefs about the patient's curability, and 63% of caregiver-oncologist dyads had discordant beliefs about living two years or more. On multivariate analysis, discordance in beliefs about curability was associated with lower anxiety (ß = -2.20; SE 0.77; P = 0.005). Discordance in beliefs about length of life was associated with a weaker alliance (ß = -5.87; SE = 2.56; P = 0.02). CONCLUSION: A better understanding of how caregivers understand and come to terms with poor prognoses will guide interventions to improve cancer care delivery and outcomes of cancer treatment.

The impact of the caregiver-oncologist relationship on caregiver experiences of end-of-life care and bereavement outcomes.

PURPOSE: The quality of the relationship between oncologists and cancer patients has been associated with caregiver bereavement outcomes, but no studies have examined whether the perceived quality of the relationship between cancer caregivers and oncologists is associated with caregiver experiences of end-of-life care or psychological adjustment after the patient's death. METHODS: We conducted secondary analyses of data collected in the Values and Options in Cancer Care (VOICE) study, a randomized controlled trial of an intervention that improved communication between oncologists and patients/caregivers (n = 204 dyads). At study entry, we assessed caregivers' experiences with the oncologist using four items from the Human Connection Scale. Following patients' deaths, we assessed bereaved caregivers' experiences with end-of-life cancer care (Quality of Death; Peace, Equanimity, and Acceptance in the Cancer Experience [PEACE]; Caregiver Evaluation of the Quality of End-of-Life Care [CEQUEL]; and modified Decision Regret scales) and psychological adjustment (Prolonged Grief Disorder-13 and Purpose in Life scales). We conducted multivariable regressions examining prospective associations between caregiver experiences with the oncologist at study entry and outcome variables. RESULTS: Data were collected from 105 caregivers of patients who died during the course of the study. Positive experience with the oncologist was prospectively associated with better experiences of end-of-life care, as reflected in better quality of death (estimate = 0.33, SE = 0.14, p = 0.02), PEACE (estimate = 0.11, SE = 0.05, p = 0.04), and decisional regret (estimate = - 0.16, SE = 0.06, p = 0.01). Caregivers' experience with the oncologist was not significantly associated with indicators of psychological adjustment. CONCLUSION: Caregivers' early experiences with oncologists may affect their experiences of the patient's end-of-life care.

The contagion of optimism: The relationship between patient optimism and palliative care clinician overestimation of survival among hospitalized patients with advanced cancer.

OBJECTIVE: Clinicians frequently overestimate survival time among seriously ill patients, and this can result in medical treatment at end of life that does not reflect the patient's preferences. Little is known, however, about the sources of clinicians' optimistic bias in survival estimation. Related work in social networks and experimental psychology demonstrates that psychological states-such as optimism-can transfer from one person to another. METHODS: We directly observed and audio recorded 189 initial inpatient palliative care consultations among hospitalized patients with advanced cancer. Patients self-reported their level of trait optimism and expectations for survival prognosis prior to the palliative care consultation, and the palliative care clinicians rated their expectations for the patient's survival time following the initial conversation with the patient. We followed patient mortality for 6 months. RESULTS: Patient optimism was associated with clinician overestimation of their survival in a dose-response relationship. Clinicians were approximately three times as likely to overestimate the survival of patients endorsing both high trait optimism and optimistic ratings of their survival time compared with neither (OR: 2.95; 95% CI: 1.24-7.02). This association was not attenuated by adjustment for age, gender, race, ethnicity, education, income, cancer type, functional status, quality of life, or white blood cell count (ORadj : 3.45; 95% CI: 1.24-9.66). CONCLUSION: Patients' optimism may have some influence over their clinicians' prognostic judgments.

Racial/ethnic differences in prognosis communication during initial inpatient palliative care consultations among people with advanced cancer.

OBJECTIVE: We examined whether conversations involving Black or Latino patients with advanced cancer differ in the presence or characteristics of prognosis communication. METHODS: We audio-recorded initial consultations between 54 palliative care clinicians and 231 hospitalized people with advanced cancer. We coded for the presence and characteristics of prognosis communication. We examined whether the presence or characteristics of prognosis communication differed by patients' self-reported race/ethnicity. RESULTS: In 231 consultations, 75.7% contained prognosis communication. Prognosis communication was less than half as likely to occur during conversations with Black or Latino patients (N = 48) compared to others. Among consultations in which prognosis was addressed, those involving Black or Latino patients were more than 8 times less likely to contain optimistically cued prognoses compared to others. CONCLUSION: Prognosis communication occurred less frequently for Black and Latino patients and included fewer optimistic cues than conversations with other patients. More work is needed to better understand these observed patterns of prognosis communication that vary by race and ethnicity. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Growing evidence supports prognosis communication being important for end-of-life decision-making and disproportionately rare among non-White populations. Therefore, our findings identify a potentially salient target for clinical interventions that are focused on ameliorating disparities in end-of-life care.

Palliative Care Clinician Overestimation of Survival in Advanced Cancer: Disparities and Association With End-of-Life Care.

CONTEXT: Clinicians frequently overestimate survival time in serious illness. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to understand the frequency of overestimation in palliative care (PC) and the relation with end-of-life (EOL) treatment. METHODS: This is a multisite cohort study of 230 hospitalized patients with advanced cancer who consulted with PC between 2013 and 2016. We asked the consulting PC clinician to make their "best guess" about the patients' "most likely survival time, assuming that their illnesses are allowed to take their natural course" (<24 hours; 24 hours to less than two weeks; two weeks to less than three months; three months to less than six months; six months or longer). We followed patients for up to six month for mortality and EOL treatment utilization. Patients completed a brief interviewer-facilitated questionnaire at study enrollment. RESULTS: Median survival was 37 days (interquartile range: 12 days, 97 days) and 186/230 (81%) died during the follow-up period. Forty-one percent of clinicians' predictions were accurate. Among inaccurate prognoses, 85% were overestimates. Among those who died, overestimates were substantially associated with less hospice use (ORadj: 0.40; 95% CI: 0.16-0.99) and later hospice enrollment (within 72 hours of death ORadj: 0.33; 95% CI: 0.15-0.74). PC clinicians were substantially more likely to overestimate survival for patients who identified as Black or Latino compared to others (ORadj: 3.89; 95% CI: 1.64-9.22). EOL treatment preferences did not explain either of these findings. CONCLUSION: Overestimation is common in PC, associated with lower hospice use and a potentially mutable source of racial/ethnic disparity in EOL care.

Feeling Heard and Understood in the Hospital Environment: Benchmarking Communication Quality Among Patients With Advanced Cancer Before and After Palliative Care Consultation.

CONTEXT: Maximizing value in palliative care requires continued development and standardization of communication quality indicators. OBJECTIVES: To describe the basic epidemiology of a newly adopted patient-centered communication quality indicator for hospitalized palliative care patients with advanced cancer. METHODS: Cross-sectional analysis of 207 advanced cancer patients who received palliative care consultation at two medical centers in the U.S. Participants completed the Heard & Understood quality indicator immediately before and the day after the initial palliative care consultation: Over the past two days ["24 hours" for the post-consultation version], how much have you felt heard and understood by the doctors, nurses, and hospital staff?-completely/quite a bit/moderately/slightly/not at all. We categorized completely as indicating ideal quality. RESULTS: Approximately one-third indicated ideal Heard & Understood quality before palliative care consultation. Age, financial security, emotional distress, preferences for comfort-longevity tradeoffs at the end of life, and prognosis expectations were associated with preconsultation quality. Among those with less-than-ideal quality at baseline, 56% rated feeling more Heard & Understood the day after palliative care consultation. The greatest prepost improvement was among people who had unformed end-of-life treatment preferences or who reported having no idea about their prognosis at baseline. CONCLUSION: Most patients felt incompletely heard and understood at the time of referral to palliative care consultation, and more than half of the patients improved after consultation. Feeling heard and understood is an important quality indicator sensitive to interventions to improve care and key variations in the patient experience.

Staff Experiences Forming and Sustaining Palliative Care Teams in Nursing Homes.

Background and Objectives: Building palliative care (PC) capacity in nursing homes (NH) is a national priority and essential to providing high quality care for residents with advanced illness. We report on NH staff experiences in developing and sustaining Palliative Care Teams (PCTeams) as part of a randomized clinical trial to "Improve Palliative Care through Teamwork" (IMPACTT). Research Design and Methods: We conducted rapid ethnographic assessments of all NH (N = 14) in the intervention arm. Data included semistructured interviews with direct care and administrative staff (n = 41), field observations, and written materials. We used a phased approach to data analysis including open coding and comparative analyses within and across homes. Results: We found four key structural themes in our analysis including: administrative support, financial considerations, turnover and staffing, and competing priorities. The development and sustainability of the nascent PCTeams were constantly threatened by competing priorities and the key factor in their success was consistent and tangible administrative support. Discussion and Implications: While improving PC in NHs is a recognized priority, lack of stable infrastructure and unintended consequences of reimbursement policies created conditions which often thwarted the sustainability of the PCTeams.

Distress Due to Prognostic Uncertainty in Palliative Care: Frequency, Distribution, and Outcomes among Hospitalized Patients with Advanced Cancer.

BACKGROUND: Prognostic uncertainty is common in advanced cancer and frequently addressed during palliative care consultation, yet we know little about its impact on quality of life (QOL). OBJECTIVE: We describe the prevalence and distribution of distress due to prognostic uncertainty among hospitalized patients with advanced cancer before palliative care consultation. We evaluate the association between this type of distress and overall QOL before and after palliative care consultation. DESIGN: Observational cohort study. SETTING & PARTICIPANTS: Hospitalized patients with advanced cancer who receive a palliative care consultation at two geographically distant academic medical centers. MEASUREMENTS: At the time of enrollment, before palliative care consultation, we asked participants: "Over the past two days, how much have you been bothered by uncertainty about what to expect from the course of your illness?" (Not at all/Slightly/Moderately/Quite a Bit/Extremely). We defined responses of "Quite a bit" and "Extremely" to be indicative of substantial distress. RESULTS: Two hundred thirty-six participants completed the baseline assessment. Seventy-seven percent reported being at least moderately bothered by prognostic uncertainty and half reported substantial distress. Compared with others, those who were distressed by prognostic uncertainty (118/236) reported poorer overall QOL before palliative care consultation (mean QOL 3.8 out of 10 vs. 5.3 out of 10, p = < 0.001) and greater improvement in QOL following consultation (Adjusted difference in mean QOL change = 1.1; 95% confidence interval = 0.2, 2.0). CONCLUSIONS: Prognostic uncertainty is a prevalent source of distress among hospitalized patients with advanced cancer at the time of initial palliative care consultation. Distress from prognostic uncertainty is associated with lower levels of preconsultation QOL and with greater pre-post consultation improvement in the QOL.

Impact of Nursing Home Palliative Care Teams on End-of-Life Outcomes: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: Deficits in end-of-life care in nursing homes (NHs) are reported, but the impact of palliative care teams (PCTeams) on resident outcomes remains largely untested. OBJECTIVE: Test the impact of PCTeams on end-of-life outcomes. RESEARCH DESIGN: Multicomponent strategy employing a randomized, 2-arm controlled trial with a difference-in-difference analysis, and a nonrandomized second control group to assess the intervention's placebo effect. SUBJECTS: In all, 25 New York State NHs completed the trial (5830 decedent residents) and 609 NHs were in the nonrandomized group (119,486 decedents). MEASURES: Four risk-adjusted outcome measures: place of death, number of hospitalizations, self-reported moderate-to-severe pain, and depressive symptoms. The Minimum Data Set, vital status files, staff surveys, and in-depth interviews were employed. For each outcome, a difference-in-difference model compared the pre-post intervention periods using logistic and Poisson regressions. RESULTS: Overall, we found no statistically significant effect of the intervention. However, independent analysis of the interview data found that only 6 of the 14 treatment facilities had continuously working PCTeams throughout the study period. Decedents in homes with working teams had significant reductions in the odds of in-hospital death compared to the other treatment [odds ratio (OR), 0.400; P<0.001), control (OR, 0.482; P<0.05), and nonrandomized control NHs (0.581; P<0.01). Decedents in these NHs had reduced rates of depressive symptoms (OR, 0.191; P≤0.01), but not pain or hospitalizations. CONCLUSIONS: The intervention was not equally effective for all outcomes and facilities. As homes vary in their ability to adopt new care practices, and in their capacity to sustain them, reforms to create the environment in which effective palliative care can become broadly implemented are needed.

Improving palliative care through teamwork (IMPACTT) in nursing homes: Study design and baseline findings.

BACKGROUND: The 2014 Institute of Medicine report recommended that healthcare providers caring for individuals with advanced illness have basic palliative care competencies in communication, inter-professional collaboration, and symptom management. Nursing homes, where one in three American decedents live and die, have fallen short of these competency goals. We implemented an intervention study to examine the efficacy of nursing home-based integrated palliative care teams in improving the quality of care processes and outcomes for residents at the end of life. METHODS/DESIGN: This paper describes the design, rationale, and challenges of a two-arm randomized controlled trial of nursing home-based palliative care teams in 31 facilities. The impact of the intervention on residents' outcomes is measured with four risk-adjusted quality indicators: place of death (nursing home or hospital), number of hospitalizations, and self-reported pain and depression in the last 90-days of life. The effect of the intervention is also evaluated with regard to staff satisfaction and impact on care processes (e.g. palliative care competency, communication, coordination). Both secondary (e.g. the Minimum Data Set) and primary (e.g. staff surveys) data are employed to examine the effect of the intervention. DISCUSSION: Several challenges in conducting a complex, nursing home-based intervention have been identified. While sustainability of the intervention without research funding is not clear, we surmise that without changes to the payment model that put palliative care services in this care setting on par with the more "skilled" care, it will not be reasonable to expect any widespread efforts to implement facility-based palliative care services.

Palliative and end-of-life care in glioblastoma: defining and measuring opportunities to improve care.

BACKGROUND: American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) quality measures for terminal cancers recommend early advance care planning and hospice at the end of life. We sought to evaluate adherence to 5 palliative care quality measures and explore associations with patient outcomes in glioblastoma. METHODS: This is a retrospective analysis of 117 deceased glioblastoma patients over 5 years. Records were reviewed to describe adherence to palliative care quality measures and patient outcomes. Data regarding emotional assessments, advance directives, palliative care consultation, chemotherapy administration, hospice, location of death, and overall survival were collected. RESULTS: Median overall survival was 12.9 months. By the second oncology visit, 22.2% (26/117) had an emotional assessment completed. Advance directives were documented for 52.1% (61/117) by the third neuro-oncology visit (30/61 health care proxy), yet 26.5% (31/117) did not have any advance directive before the last month of life. With regard to other ASCO quality measures, 36.8% (43/117) had a palliative care consult; 94.0% (110/117) did not receive chemotherapy in the last 14 days of life; 59.8% (70/117) enrolled in hospice >7 days before death; and 56.4% (66/117) died in a home setting. Patients who enrolled in hospice >7 days before death were 3.56 times more likely to die in a home setting than patients enrolled <7 days before death or with no hospice enrollment (P = .002, [OR 3.56; 95% CI, 1.57-8.04]). CONCLUSIONS: Late advance directive documentation, minimal early palliative care involvement, and the association of early hospice enrollment with death in a home setting underscore the need to improve care and better define palliative care quality measures in glioblastoma.

Feeling Heard and Understood: A Patient-Reported Quality Measure for the Inpatient Palliative Care Setting.

CONTEXT: As endorsed by the palliative care "Measuring What Matters" initiative, capturing patients' direct assessment of their care is essential for ongoing quality reporting and improvement. Fostering an environment where seriously ill patients feel heard and understood is of crucial importance to modern health care. OBJECTIVES: To describe the development and performance of a self-report field measure for seriously ill patients to report how well they feel heard and understood in the hospital environment. METHODS: As part of a larger ongoing cohort study of inpatient palliative care, we developed and administered the following point-of-care item: "Over the past two days, how much have you felt heard and understood by the doctors, nurses and hospital staff?" (completely, quite a bit, moderately, slightly, not at all). Participants completed the measure before and the day after palliative care consultation. For the postconsultation version, we changed the time frame from "past two days" to "today." RESULTS: One hundred sixty patients with advanced cancer completed the preconsultation assessment, and 87% of them completed the postconsultation version. Responses encompassed full use of the ordinal scale, did not exhibit ceiling or floor effects, and showed improvement from preassessment to postassessment. The item was quick to administer and easy for patients to complete. CONCLUSION: The "Heard & Understood" item is a promising self-report quality measure for the inpatient palliative care setting.

Design of, and enrollment in, the palliative care communication research initiative: a direct-observation cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Understanding the characteristics of communication that foster patient-centered outcomes amid serious illness are essential for the science of palliative care. However, epidemiological cohort studies that directly observe clinical conversations can be challenging to conduct in the natural setting. We describe the successful enrollment, observation and data collection methods of the ongoing Palliative Care Communication Research Initiative (PCCRI). METHODS: The PCCRI is a multi-site cohort study of naturally occurring inpatient palliative care consultations. The 6-month cohort data includes directly observed and audio-recorded palliative care consultations (up to first 3 visits); patient/proxy/clinician self-report questionnaires both before and the day after consultation; post-consultation in-depth interviews; and medical/administrative records. RESULTS: One hundred fourteen patients or their proxies enrolled in PCCRI during Enrollment Year One (of Three). Seventy percent of eligible patients/proxies were invited to hear about a communication research study (188/269); 60% of them ultimately enrolled in the PCCRI (114/188), resulting in a 42% sampling proportion (114/269 eligible). All PC clinicians at study sites were invited to participate; all 45 participated. CONCLUSIONS: Epidemiologic study of patient-family-clinician communication in palliative care settings is feasible and acceptable to patients, proxies and clinicians. We detail the successful PCCRI methods for enrollment, direct observation and data collection for this complex "field" environment.

Goal Communication in Palliative Care Decision-Making Consultations.

CONTEXT: Palliative care (PC) promotes patient-centered outcomes, but the mechanisms underlying these effects remain poorly understood. Identifying, clarifying, and prioritizing patients' goals are conceptually fundamental to the process of patient-centeredness and are the main reasons for PC referral. However, very little is empirically known about the content or process of goal expression in the natural setting of PC. OBJECTIVES: To describe the frequency, types, and determinants of goal expression in PC consultations. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional direct observational study of 72 audiorecorded PC consultations with hospitalized patients (and families) referred for PC goals of care clarification or end-of-life decision making. We coded digital audio files using reliable methods and linked conversation codes to clinical record and brief clinician interview data. RESULTS: Goal expressions occurred frequently in PC consultations and addressed both length-of-life and quality-of-life domains. The presence of existential suffering in the conversation was associated with substantially more expressions and types of goals. CONCLUSION: Goal communication is common in PC decision-making settings and strongly influenced by existential suffering.