Last Rights: Survey & Poll Data

Most Americans fear they will suffer a lingering, irreversible illness and won't be able to control their own medical treatment.

A majority have discussed these feelings with family members.

But overwhelmingly, Americans have failed to take legal steps to ensure their wishes are followed, nor have they talked to doctors or other health care professionals about their feelings, according to a survey of 1,014 adults sponsored by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University.

The poll found that few Americans have prepared legal documents that would give doctors and hospitals instructions concerning their care.

Only a third have completed a "living will" that would "indicate the kind of medical care you want or don't want if you are incapacitated by a terminal illness."

Even fewer have discussed such things with doctors. Barely a fifth of adults said they have spoken with their physicians about the medical issues involved in dying or about the kinds of procedures, such as the use of life support machines, to be used in their final days.

The survey was conducted at the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University under the direction of journalism professor Joe Bernt. The study was funded by Scripps Howard News Service and the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism.

Adults from 1,014 households were selected at random by computer and interviewed by telephone between June 16 and June 29.

The poll has a margin of error of 4 percent at the 95 percent confidence level. That means 95 times out of 100 a poll of this type will be accurate to within 4 percent of results that would be achieved if every American household had been contacted.