Abstract

In Western society, the topic of death has been removed from everyday life and replaced with medical language. Such censorship does not reduce individuals’ fear of death, but rather limits their ability to elaborate their experiences of death, thus generating negative effects. The objective of this follow-up qualitative study was to detect how and if death education can help to improve individuals’ relationship with death and enhance care environments like hospices. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with palliative care professionals and teachers who had taken part in a death education initiative three years earlier. The results confirmed the initiative’s positive effect on both palliative care professionals and teachers. The participants reported that the education initiative helped them to positively modify their perspective on death, end-of-life care, and their own relationship to life, as well as their perception of community attitudes towards the hospice, which seemed to become less discriminatory. This study confirmed that school education initiatives can usefully create continuity between hospices and local communities. This project provided an educational space wherein it was possible for participants to elaborate their experiences in relation to death and to re-evaluate and appreciate hospices.

Highlights

  • The theme of death in Western society has been removed from everyday life and replaced with specialised medical language

  • The present study investigates the effects of the experience on the program participants who had taken part in the aforementioned death education initiative three years previously

  • The main objectives of this study were to evaluate the efficacy of a death education initiative and its impact on teachers and hospice professionals with respect to their relationship with representations of death, and to explore how the relationship between a community and its local hospice changed following a death education initiative based on an analysis of the themes of death, dying and suicide

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Summary

Introduction

The theme of death in Western society has been removed from everyday life and replaced with specialised medical language. This may be related to people’s innate tendency to avoid anything that reminds them of their finitude [1]. As asserted by terror management theory (TMT), awareness of death is inevitable, and such awareness may occur at any moment for uncontrollable reasons and generate a feeling of latent and constant terror According to this perspective, this reaction is natural because the terror of death can become paralysing, preventing the normal flow of everyday life [2]. For example, are very important in this area because they make it possible to

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