| Summary: | Hospice care is believed to offer the best care for terminally ill patients (Manning, 1984). This thesis explores how patients on a hospice in-patient unit perceived and responded to surrounding dying and multiple deaths which they encountered. The approach to this ethnographic study incorporates the participant observation technique and underscores the symbolic interactionist component in generating a theoretical explanation. A sensitising concept, 'openness to death', suggested in the literature on the hospice movement, provided direction for the fieldwork. The fieldwork was undertaken over an eight month period. Patients admitted to the hospice in-patient unit during this time were potential participants. Selection of participants was based on their desire and consent, and/or their physical and mental capabilities to participate in the study. Assessments of patients' ability to participate were aided by information from attending hand-over reports and making regular round through the unit to check on their conditions. Staff and relatives' views are incorporated into the thesis. Hospice ideology is challenged through the strategies practised by the staff in this hospice. In this thesis the ways in which patients discovered death are discussed. Various elements of dying and death vigils are presented, and patients' responses to dying and multiple deaths are explored.
|
|---|
