More people completed advance directives during Covid-19

Advance directives — to indicate a person's wishes for medical treatment should they not be able to communicate them — increased fivefold during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new research. A website to help people plan medical care in advance had nearly five times more users between February and April this year compared to January 2020 (which the researchers designated as pre-Covid). While the overall number of users on the website was still low — 482 during the Covid-19 period — the authors suggest knowing visitors would be restricted for those hospitalized for Covid-19 may have prompted people to prepare in advance. Another caveat: The website in question is publicly available, but is largely used by patients within the University of Pennsylvania's health system and could skew the generalizability of the findings.