We were interested in the recent study outlining the end-of-life preferences and opinions on paediatric advance care planning of adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with HIV/AIDS. We know that end-of-life conversations and conversations around advance care planning for AYAs with serious illnesses including HIV and cancer are particularly important for gold-standard care at end-of-life.1–5 Lyon and colleagues’1 research supports the appropriateness of end-of-life conversations earlier in the disease trajectory. This paper is also a welcome addition in highlighting the importance of AYAs’ individual preferences at end-of-life.

To better understand developmental aspects of how young people approach end-of-life, we recently explored end-of-life communication and care preferences with AYAs with no history of serious illness. There is a lack of clarity in the field around how early to introduce end-of-life topics with seriously ill AYAs. However, AYAs in Lyon and colleagues’1 study were willing to have end-of-life conversations earlier; 78% indicated that it would be appropriate to initiate these conversations early in the disease trajectory. In our recent work, we asked 248 healthy AYAs (66.5% female, mean age 20 years) whether they would want …