Introduction:

Increasing life expectancy also increases the presence of chronic degenerative diseases, which are characterized by being incurable, progressive and invariably fatal. The Law of Advance Will arose in Mexico City to protect the autonomy and respect the decision of patients in terminal stages.

Objective:

To identify the level of knowledge of the geriatric population regarding to the Law of Living Will.

Methods:

Observational, descriptive study performed in a Family Medicine's Clinic from September to December, 2016. A non-probabilistic sampling was used by convenience. The sample size was calculated based on the absolute difference's criteria. Inferential statistics were used to relate the study variables to the level of knowledge, and the Chi Square, exact Fisher and/or Kruskal Wallis tests. The significance level was of 0.05. It was used the SPSS statistical package.

Results:

66 patients were interviewed in total, the average age was 79.74 years, 72.2% of them had basic level of schooling. 21.2% of the population knew about the existence of the Law of Living Will. The statistical analysis only obtained a relationship with statistical significance between the level of knowledge about the Law of Living Will and the schooling of patients for most of the questions.

Conclusion:

Law of Living Will is a little-known legal resource in the geriatric population and outreach campaigns should be established as well as sensitizing health personnel to address it in the daily consultation.

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