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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Awareness of dying
— prevalence, causes and consequences | | Author(s) | Clive Seale, Julia Addington-Hall, Mark McCarthy |
| Journal title | Social Science and Medicine, vol 45, no 3, 1997 |
| Pages | pp 477-484 |
| Keywords | Death ; Terminal care ; Euthanasia ; Social surveys. |
| Annotation | Analysis of a subset of the Regional Study of Care for the Dying carried out in 1990 is reported. Using the typology of awareness contexts developed in "Awareness of dying" by Glaser and Strauss (1965), the prevalence of different awareness contexts is described and compared with an earlier survey done in 1969. Open awareness of dying, where both the dying person and the respondent relative or friend knew that the person was dying, is the most prevalent awareness context. This is particularly so for cancer, and represents a change since 1969 when closed awareness (where the respondent knows, but the dying person does not) was more common. Compared with people in closed awareness, those dying in full awareness are more able to plan for death, so that they are less likely to die alone, and are more likely to die in their own homes. These individuals are also more likely to have spoken of their wishes for euthanasia, another indicator of their desire to control the manner and timing of death. If dying from cancer, those with full awareness are also more likely to have received hospice care. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-010227528 A |
| Classmark | CW: LV: CY: 3F * |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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