Objectives: To develop an end-of-life attitudes questionnaire for use in a large community-based sample of older people.
Design: Nominal groups and standardization of questions.
Participants: Eighteen older people, ten academics and five specialist palliative care health professionals were involved in nominal groups. Thirty older people took part in initial pilot work and a further 50 were involved in reliability testing.
Results: A 27-item attitudes of older people to end-of-life issues (AEOLI) questionnaire.
Discussion: In modern times, death and dying predominantly occurs among older people and yet we know very little about older people's attitudes to end-of-life care. The AEOLI questionnaire can be used in large scale surveys to elicit attitudes on end-of life issues considered important by older people and health care professionals.