Exploration of individuals’ perspectives towards death and dying

Open Longevity Science (Formerly 'The Open Aging Journal'), 2008

Objectives: This study was conducted to examine the ideas of elderly individuals on life, death and treatment at the end-of-life in order to understand what the basis for such views is.

Frontiers in Psychology, 2021

The aim of this study was to explore how older adults (aged > 65) confronted with imminent death express their thoughts and feelings about death and dying and verbalize meaning. Furthermore, the aim was to investigate how health professionals could better address the needs of this patient group to experience meaning at the end of life. The study applied a qualitative method, involving semi-structured interviews with 10 participants at two hospices. The method of analysis was interpretative phenomenological analysis. We found three chronological time-based themes: (1) Approaching Death, (2) The time before dying, and (3) The afterlife. The participants displayed scarce existential vernacular for pursuing meaning with approaching death. They primarily applied understanding and vocabulary from a medical paradigm. The participants’ descriptions of how they experienced and pursued meaning in the time before dying were also predominantly characterized by medical vernacular, but these d...

Funes. Journal of Narratives and Social Sciences, 2018

Death represents one of those few experiences that every society throughout history faces. It has been defined as the marginal situation par excellence (Berger, 1969). Since it cannot be known concretely, it exists at the margins of every symbolic system, of any solid structure of meaning that a society can possess. Conceiving one’s own mortality and coping with the death of loved ones bears a threat to the typical way of understanding and defining the social world. The awareness of death is difficult to handle, since it sheds light on the whole existence of those who must cope with it. Therefore, every group as well as every individual, faced with the end of human life, the loss and the mourning process, must also ask oneself about the sense and the meaning of death in order to face its scope.

Death studies, 2004

PLOS ONE

Research aims The motivations that lead to wishes to die (WTD) in palliative care patients with cancer are relatively well studied. But little is known about WTD in other pathologies and the relation between subjective understandings of dying trajectories and a WTD. We investigated the WTD of palliative patients in four different dying trajectories: neurological diseases, organ failure, frailty due to age, and cancer. Study population 62 palliative cancer (n = 30) and non-cancer (n = 32) patients (10 neurological disease; 11 organ failure; 11 frailty), their families and health professionals in different palliative care settings (248 interviews).

Quality in Ageing and Older Adults, 2011

Purpose -The paper seeks to make reflections on some ethnographic work undertaken with dying patients. The reflections cover the practical and social implications of carrying out this work but, also the emotional impact it had on the author.

2019

There are two certainties in life: we are born, and we will die. Everything in between birth and death is our life. This truth leads many individuals to existential questions: What is the meaning of life? How do we become satisfied with life, knowing that death is impending? Does awareness of death motivate how we live? Death anxiety is a well-studied subject; well over 500 studies provide information on who is the most fearful of death among a variety of groups (women versus men, religious verses secular, youth verses elderly, et cetera). These studies also use presuppositions to explain fear of death, such as, elder individuals have less fear of death due to life experience, a practical reason that makes sense and is likely true. My study looks beyond practical reasoning. I used descriptive phenomenological research to explore the subjective experiences of six individuals, to look beyond presuppositions and examine personal reasoning, and explore whether there were commonalities among their experiences. This study found ten (10) commonalities within the subjective experience of each participant that influenced each person's fear of death. In the whole these commonalities describe the structure of a phenomenon, experiences that alter the fear of death and influences actions taken in life. The commonalities are loss, selfishness, worry about the process of dying, helplessness over what cannot be controlled, common daily fears, meaning-making that is embedded in general reasoning, reports of self-protection, pleasure-seeking drives, struggles with internal and external values, and a v feeling of relief that is found in those who have lost a loved one to chronic illness. This study provides an enhanced understanding of how individuals process death anxiety. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA, http://aura.antioch.edu/ and Ohio Link ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu/etd.

2015

Death is a considerable issue for human only. One of the important items of death is death anxiety. Death anxiety is one of the problematic factors in lives of persons that this from of anxiety is deemed to being studied and understanding. The aim of this research was clarifying death anxieties from various perspectives [religion, psychology and grosticism]. This research was done in a way of descriptive-Analytic. The results of this research could propose a clear picture of death anxiety from various perspectives. Death anxiety could be an item of obscurity and there is a need to examine it [anxiety] more and look at it from various perspectives and have integrative results of that.

Health Psychology Open, 2018

The censorship of death and dying has removed the “memento mori” practices, and in order to reintroduce this practice, some “Before I die” projects have been increasingly implemented. Running in parallel, in the syllabi of social service and psychology students, some experiences of death education has commenced. This study illustrates the results of a qualitative research conducted on the “Before I die I want to …” Polaroid® Project (BIDIWT), which is divided into two phases. The first phase entails an analysis of the wishes collected from the United States, Japan, India, and Italy. The second phase refers to the analysis of the captions of the BIDIWT realized from two groups of undergraduates, with regard to the effect of such experience on their religiosity, representation of death, and fear of death.

Croatian nursing journal

Introduction. Death means the irreversible termination of the organism’s vital activities. Dying presents an irreversible state of an incurable disease from which death is expected in due time. The experience of meaning in life is defined as the degree to which an individual understands and sees significance in his life, how and to what extent he feels purpose in life. Aim. The aim of this research was to determine the role of demographic characteristics (gender, age, level of education, religiosity), their relationship with the experience of meaning in the life of nurses, and the relationship between the attitudes of nurses towards death and dying with the experience of meaning in life. Methods. The research was conducted in the period from May to June 2022. The survey was composed of three parts, and was posted on the Facebook social network in the group named Nurses together. A total of 240 participants took part in the research, of which 185 were female nurses and 55 were male n...

2019

The ideas that emerge when being confronted with the word “death” are very individual. Formation of this concept is a lifelong intimate (in terms of a weak willingness to share it publicly) issue. Although the death concept is unique for everybody, it is possible to identify the influences that shaped most of its form. The content of the death concept depends on an individual’s cognitive maturity,[2] on the various cultural influences, including language, religious background, the meaning of life and spiritual maturity,[3] own experiences with death in a broader or closer surroundings of an individual,[4] emotions associated with this concept (especially fear and anxiety)[5] etc. Many of these influences are unconscious and many of those which are conscious are actively and deliberately pushed out of consciousness.

None to report OBJECTIVES • To acknowledge the context of dying/death in acute care settings • To identify challenges associated with dying/death in acute care settings • To recognize emotional and psychological issues in dying and death • To explore what HCPs can do to support patients, families, and themselves

Cadernos Brasileiros de Terapia Ocupacional

This theoretical essay aims to propose reflections on death and dying through the prism of possible antagonisms, illness and human occupations involved in this process. The antagonisms are put up for discussion obeying the sense of mutual opposition between life and death, birth and death, as well as between their prediction and their negation. Illness is discussed from the perspective of Laplantine's dynamic and ontological models, opening up reflections on the meaning of illness for the patient, who is often expropriated from their dying process. It also addresses how death is currently pushed behind the scenes of social life. Finally, the occupations of death based on the “principles of good death” are approached from the perspective of occupational therapy, discussing funeral preparations and rites developed by the deceased, their social circle and by health professionals, religious people, funeral agents and cemetery workers. We understand that death is a social process.

An analysis of Heidegger's and Sartre's view of death. An argument that a serious acknowledgement of one's own death can lead to an ethics towards other people, and a sense of togetherness