The Influence of Hospice Volunteering and Death Education on High School Students’ Attitude toward Death and Meaning of Life

Abstract

Purpose: This descriptive research was carried out to identify how high school students' attitude to death and their meaning of life were affected by hospice volunteering and death education. Methods: This study is based on a structured questionnaire designed for 180 high school students who were given death education while doing volunteer work at non-profit hospice hospitals and another 288 high school students not doing any hospice volunteer work. The collected data was processed by the SPSS 20.0 program and then analyzed by x2 test, t-test and ANOVA test. Results: High school students' attitude to death and their meaning of life showed significant differences depending on whether or not they had volunteered at hospice hospitals. The group with hospice volunteering experience tended to be more negative about death and have a higher meaning of life compared to those without hospice volunteering experience. Students with proper hospice recognition made up 52.4%, those who expressed hopes to receive hospice-care themselves if necessary accounted for 70.5%, and those who said they would like to take care of their family members either at home or at a hospice center if any of them got incurably sick comprised 59.0%. Those who thought dignified death is to be with one's family or any other meaningful person were 47.6% and 18.5% of the students thought that 'thinking they had led a meaningful life' was the core of a dignified death. Conclusion: Given the above results, it became clear that hospice volunteering and death education can affect high school students' meaning of life and their attitudes toward death.