Advance Care Planning and Care Coordination for People With Parkinson's Disease

Background: People with Parkinson's disease (PD), including parkinsonisms, experience complex motor and non-motor symptoms, which become more hindering in the advanced stages of PD. Advance care planning (ACP) enables individuals to define goals and preferences for future medical treatment and serves to ensure that people receive treatment and care that is in line with their preferences during serious chronic illness. The effectiveness of ACP for PD is currently unknown. Methods: The investigators will evaluate the effectiveness of a multicenter, open-label randomized controlled trial, with a parallel group design in seven European countries (Austria, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Sweden and United Kingdom). The "PD\_Pal intervention" comprises (1) several consultations with a trained nurse who will perform ACP conversations and support care coordination and (2) use of a patient-directed "Parkinson Support Plan-workbook". The intervention group will be compared to a care-as-usual group. Documented ACP-decisions in the medical records/patient's central file assessed at 6 months after baseline will be the primary endpoint. Secondary endpoints include patients' and family caregivers' quality of life, perceived care coordination, patients' symptom burden, and cost-effectiveness. Assessments will take place at baseline, 6 months after baseline and 12 months after baseline. In parallel, we will perform a process evaluation, to understand the feasibility of the intervention. Hypothesis: The investigators hypothesize that the PD\_Pal intervention will result in an increased number of participants with ACP documentation in the medical records/patient's central file, as compared to care-as-usual. Secondly, the investigators expect that, due to the PD\_Pal intervention, patients and their FC will experience better care coordination, better quality of life, a reduced patient symptom burden and the FC will experience a reduction in caregiver burden.