Common Items on a Bucket List.

backgroundTo provide preference-sensitive care, we propose that clinicians might routinely inquire about their patients' bucket-lists and discuss the impact (if any) of their medical treatments on their life goals.

methodsThis cross-sectional, mixed methods online study explores the concept of the bucket list and seeks to identify common bucket list themes. Data were collected in 2015-2016 through an online survey, which was completed by a total of 3056 participants across the United States. Forty participants who had a bucket list were identified randomly and used as the development cohort: their responses were analyzed qualitatively using grounded theory methods to identify the six key bucket list themes. The responses of the remaining 3016 participants were used for the validation study. The codes identified from the development cohort were validated by analyses of responses from 50 randomly drawn subjects from the validation cohort. All the 3016 validation cohort transcripts were coded for presence or absence of each of the six bucket list themes.

resultsAround 91.2% participants had a bucket list. Age and spirituality influence the patient's bucket-list. Participants who reported that faith/religion/spirituality was important to them were most likely (95%) to have a bucket list compared with those who reported it to be unimportant (68.2%), χ

conclusionsThe bucket list is a simple framework that can be used to engage patients about their healthcare decision making. Knowing a patient's bucket list can aid clinicians in relating each treatment option to its potential impact (if any) on the patient's life and life goals to promote informed decision making.