Attitudes of General Public and Nurses to Death and Dying

Societal attitudes to death and dying are important in shaping health policy and interventions in the context of end of life care. They are also fundamental to the identification of priorities for public education and service provision. With the rapid growth of research in end of life care and increasing importance of hospice and palliative care in the society, public perceptions and attitudes to death and dying, relatively unexplored areas in the past, have also seen remarkable progress in recent studies. Furthermore, the attitudes of healthcare and social care providers to death and dying are of specific values in research investigations and care delivery, in particular for practitioners such as hospice and palliative care nurses, who frequently deal with the phenomenon of death and dying when carrying out their daily duties in caring for patients. This has resulted in increasing studies on the effectiveness of end of life educational interventions aiming to improve the knowledge, attitudes and practices of nurses and nursing students towards death and care of terminally ill patients. In this chapter, relevant studies will be reviewed and used as case examples to provide insights for better understanding and improving the attitudes of general public and healthcare practitioners to death and dying. In addition, grief, a psychological response to loss and bereavement, has long been a research topic in death and dying. The chapter will also discuss and provide a brief highlight of the socio-cultural and educational issues of grief and loss, with reference to research findings and practical experience in end of life care.