An exploratory study was conducted into the role of prayer in the personal and professional lives of caregivers to the dying. Background questionnaires were completed by 78 counselors, doctors, nurses, and volunteers who were associated with hospice programs in Arizona. Semistructured interviews were then conducted with 24 men and women who were selected randomly from the pool of questionnaires. Most of the caregivers described themselves as being very religious. The typical caregiver makes frequent use of prayer as a means of helping her/himself to cope with the stresses and challenges encountered in hospice work. These prayers are most often private, spontaneous, and improvised, rather than reiterations of formalized prayer texts. The caregivers seldom pray with patients and family, or petition God for particular interventions. Essentially, prayer is considered to be a vital but personal way of maintaining the person's own hope, strength, and wisdom. Comparisons are made with a related study of prayer behavior and attitudes conducted with participants at a national conference of the Association for Death Education and Counseling.

Arizona↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Death personification in the Kevorkian era.

Have death personifications changed over the past quarter of a century? A 1971 study explored the death personifications of college students, student nurses, nurses, and mortuary science students. The present study focused on 123 students of nursing and 324 students enrolled in general study courses at a large university in the American Southwest. The study also explored the possibility that Dr. Jack Kevorkian may have emerged as a contemporary image of death. Respondents were asked to imagine death as a character in the movies and to indicate the nature of this character through fixed-choice alternatives. Respondents were also asked to identify the sources or models for their personifications of death. It was found that male personifications of death still predominate, but that female personifications occur with greater frequency than in the earlier study, especially among female respondents. Although the "Gentle Comforter" is most often seen as an elderly person, overall the relationship between age and death personification appears to have weakened. There is now a larger divergence between the sexes in type of death personification selected most frequently. Females most often select "kind and gentle" imagery; males now are more likely to see death as a "cold, remote" person. Grim and terrifying images of death occur with some frequency, but are the least often selected by respondents of either sex. There was no evidence to support the emergence of a Kevorkian-type death personification, although he was identified correctly by almost all respondents and was viewed favorably by a majority.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Death, dying, and bereavement in old age: new developments and their possible implications for psychosocial care.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Aged↗