Background: In palliative care, caregivers frequently act as surrogate decision-makers, but their knowledge of patients' preferences for end-of-life care is sometimes scarce and incorrect. Advance Directives might be a powerful communication tool to promote the dialogue between patients and caregivers.
Aims: This work aims to find evidence supporting the use of the Advance Directives documents by health practitioners as a communication tool to improve caregivers' capacity as health surrogates in palliative care.
Methods: A literature review was conducted in four databases-Medline, Web of Science, Scopus, and Cochrane to identify studies published until February 27th, 2021, analysing advance directive's use as a communication tool between palliative patients and their caregivers.
Findings: Of the 1251 papers screened, only one article met the defined criteria, presenting results statistically favourable to advance directive's use, although with the risk of significant bias.
Conclusions: Although the results seem promising, more studies are needed to validate this strategy scientifically.
Keywords: advance directives; communication; palliative care; surrogate.