• Mary M Mitchell, Eric D Hansen, Tuo-Yen Tseng, Meng Shen, Cynda Rushton, Tom Smith, Nancy Hutton, Jennifer Wolfe, Lee Bone, Jeanne Keruly, Lawrence Wissow, Zachary Catanzarite, and Amy R Knowlton.
• Department of Health Behavior and Society, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Electronic address: marymitch1@yahoo.com.
• J Pain Symptom Manage. 2018 Jul 1; 56 (1): 53-62.

ContextAdvance care planning rates remain low, especially among people who are HIV positive, disadvantaged, and African American. Although advance care planning can be a sensitive topic for clinicians and patients to discuss, health values clarification can be an important initial step.ObjectivesThe purpose of the study was to explore health values of African Americans living with HIV/AIDS and to examine correlates of these values.MethodsData were from the first 325 participants in the AFFIRM Care study, which enrolled adults living with HIV/AIDS in Baltimore, Maryland, who had histories of illicit drug use. Respondents were asked whether (yes/no) they thought any of six health states would be worse than death: severe unremitting pain, total dependency on others, irreversible coma, being on mechanical ventilation, nursing home residence, and severe dementia. Latent class analysis was used to group individuals by their pattern of responses, interpretable as preference for aggressive (life-sustaining) or nonaggressive (palliative) end-of-life care. Latent class regression analysis was used to examine associations between class membership and background, health status, and social variables.ResultsWe found statistical support for a three-class latent class analysis model: 1) the nonaggressive treatment class, comprising 43% of cases, in which members perceived that every state was worse than death; 2) the aggressive treatment class, comprising 33% of cases, in which members perceived that none of the states was worse than death; and 3) the mixed class (24% of cases), in which members perceived that only four of the six states were worse than death.ConclusionThree-quarters of participant response patterns had clear preferences for treatment decisions. Further research is needed to ensure inclusion of end-of-life scenarios relevant to this population.Copyright © 2018 American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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