Just one in three older Australians have an advance care directive (ACD), with the uptake of future care planning especially low in general practices, a study of health records shows.

About 30% of patients aged over 65 have an ACD included in their health records, in the study of data from 51 Australian hospitals, aged care facilities and GP clinics, across six states and territories.

Patients most likely to have an ACD were those in residential care, where almost half had a completed document on file, compared with 16% in hospitals and just 3% of the records from general practices.

It was “concerning” that most older Australians were not taking control of their future healthcare, given the ageing population, said ead author Dr Karen Detering, medical director of the federal government’s Advance Care Planning Australia.