• Survey Research
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.95-121
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to measure Koreans' views on the life and death and to illuminate the structural relationship between their subscales. The subscales are composed of afterlife views, death anxiety, death concern, will of suicide inhibition. Data drawn from Korean General Social Survey(KGSS) collected in 2009 were analyzed. The findings show that favorable attitude towards afterlife has positive relationship with favorable attitude towards returning to this life. The favorable attitude towards returning to the present life has positive relationship with death anxiety while it has negative relationship with will of suicide inhibition. The favorable attitude towards afterlife has positive relationship with death concern and will of suicide inhibition. Social support and happiness have negative impact on death concern while they are positively associated with will of suicide inhibition. These findings indicate that all subscales of views on life and death are significantly related to themselves and are also correlated with socio-demographic factors, which means that we have to comprehensively look inside the views on the life and death in order to understand the increasing suicide among Koreans. Further studies need approaching Koreans' views on the life and death by using more validated tools to capture their holistics picture.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.80-94
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• 2023

Purpose: This study aimed to identify attitudes toward advance directives (ADs) among female cancer patients and factors related to ADs. Methods: The study was conducted at a university hospital in Seoul from September 19, 2020, to January 20, 2021. The participants were 153 patients diagnosed with gynecological cancer or breast cancer. Data were collected using questionnaires and included general characteristics, disease- and AD-related characteristics, knowledge and attitudes about ADs, and attitudes about dignified death. Data were analyzed using the t-test, analysis of variance, and multiple regression analysis. Results: Only 2% of the participants completed ADs. The mean score for attitudes toward ADs was 3.30, indicating a positive knowledge and attitude toward dignified death. The factors related to attitudes toward ADs were attitudes toward dignified death (𝛽=0.25, P=0.001), experience discussing life-sustaining treatment (𝛽=0.17, P=0.037), preferred time to have a consultation about ADs (𝛽=0.19, P=0.046), intention to write ADs (𝛽=0.15, P=0.038), and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Status (𝛽=-0.37, P<0.001). The explanatory power of these variables for attitudes toward ADs was 38.5%. Conclusion: Overall, patients preferred to have a consultation about ADs when they were still active, mentally healthy, and able to make decisions. Education about ADs should be provided to patients on the first day of hospitalization for chemotherapy or while awaiting treatment in an outpatient setting so patients can write ADs and discuss them with family and friends.

• Journal of Korean Critical Care Nursing
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.76-86
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• 2020

Purpose : The purpose of this study was to identify the extent to which nurses' death perceptions, death anxiety, and stress associated with terminal care affects their attitudes toward terminal care. Method : A total of 214 nurses were asked questions about characteristics, death perceptions, death anxiety, stress associated with end-of-life care, and terminal care attitudes, using structured questionnaires. The data were analyzed using descriptive analysis, t-test, ANOVA, Scheffé's test, Pearson's correlation coefficients, and stepwise multiple regression. Results : Factors influencing terminal care attitudes in participants were positive meaning associated with death, respect for life, final education, end-of-life nursing education experiences, stress associated with end-of-life care, death anxiety, and position. These factors explained 38.7% of variance in participants' terminal care attitudes (F=20.18, p<.001). Conclusion : In order for nurses to have a positive attitude toward terminal care, it is necessary to raise positive awareness about death and respect for life, and it is necessary to develop various educational programs and strengthen their capacity through continuous education.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.539-547
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• 2021

This study was conducted to identify the effects of knowledge of Advance Directives (AD) and the patient's perception of a peaceful death on their attitude toward the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment and to provide basic data for the development of a nursing intervention program for activating self-determination in the withdrawal of life-sustaining support of patients. The subjects were 167 adult cancer patients who received outpatient or inpatient treatment, from September 15, 2019, to March 30, 2020. The data was analyzed by mean, standard deviation, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficient, and multiple regression by using SPSS 21.0. From the results, it was observed that the knowledge of AD was 8.87±2.46 out of 12, perception of a peaceful death was 2.87±0.42 out of 4, and attitude toward withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment was 3.46±0.49 out of 5. There was a positive correlation between knowledge of AD, perception of a peaceful death, and their attitude toward withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment. The influencing variables were the knowledge of AD, perception of a peaceful death, discussion with family on withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment, and explanation power was 16.0% (F=10.355, p<.001). Therefore, it is necessary to develop a program that would improve the perception of a peaceful death, increase the knowledge of AD to improve the patients' attitude toward the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment. An intervention to assist a discussion between the patients and their families in advance would also be useful.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.445-456
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• 2021

Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate the effects of a community-based death education program for older adults. Methods: The study was conducted as a quasi-experimental study with a non-equivalent control group and pretest-posttest design. The subjects were community elders aged over 65 registered at a community health center and were convenience sampled. The experimental group consisted of 33 participants and the control group consisted of 32 participants. Experiments are conducted from June 18 to July 24, 2020. We tested our hypothesis using an independent t-test, and paired t-test. Results: The experimental group had significantly higher scores for psychological well-being than the control group after treatment (t=2.24, p=.028). In general attitude toward the use of life-sustaining technology, however, only the experimental group had a significant difference before and after the experiment with lower scores compared to the control group (t=-5.41, p<.001). Conclusion: We found that the community-based death education program developed in this study was partially effective in improving older adults' psychological well-being and general attitude toward the use of life-sustaining technology.

• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.130-142
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• 2010

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze attitude toward dignified dying of Korean students majoring in human service area. Methods: The Q-methodology which provides a method of analyzing the subjectivity of each item was used. The 34 selected Q-statements from each of 38 subjects were classified into a shape of normal distribution using a 9 point scale. The collected data was analyzed using a QUANL PC program. Results: Four types of attitude toward dignified dying from the subjects were identified. Type I is an expression type for happy emotion, Type II is a dislike type for life prolongation, Type III is a pursuit type for relationship improvement, and Type IV is a perception type for family presence. Conclusion: The results of the study indicate that integrating multi-disciplinary curriculum development related to dignified dying and death education for students majoring in human service area are needed.

• The Journal of Korean Academic Society of Nursing Education
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.7-16
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to classify the subjectivity type toward death among college students and to understand the characteristics of attitudes and orientations toward death of each type. Since attitudes and orientations toward death is very subjective and unique, Q-methodology was employed in this study. Q-methodology explains the respondent's subjectivity by objectifying his subjectivity for himself. The P-sample consisted of 63 students of K university in D city. Forty statements concerning attitudes and orientations toward death, which developed by Yeun(1999) were utilized for Q-sample. Forty Q-statements were sorted according to the level of agreement or disagreement by forced normal distribution. The Q-sorts by each subjects were coded and analysed with the PC-QUANL program. Five types of subjectivity toward death were identified and labeled. Type 1 'the death- preparation' think frequently about his own death and talk openly about the problem of death with a positive attitude. Type 2 'the life-esteemed' respect the dignity of life most of all. Type 3 'the realty-oriented' do not believe the afterlife and is very concerned about the present life itself instead of thinking about death. Type 4 'the ambivalent' think importantly the aspect of present life and orient the afterlife at the same time. This type reveals opposite attitude of preparing and scaring the death at the same time. Type 5 'the destiny-recipient' attribute death to the destiny and deny suicide. On the basis of this result, the studies about applying and developing educational program on death and hospice care for nurses who care terminal cancer patients and families are needed.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.429-437
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• 2019

This study was a descriptive study to investigate the factors influencing on attitude toward withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment of nursing students' consciousness of biomedical ethics, good death recognition and meaning of life. The subjects of this study were 293 nursing students attending college at P city. Data were collected for two weeks from May 1, 2018 to May 11, 2018. The statistical method was performed with SPSS WIN 22.0 using a complex sampling analysis, pearson's correlation coefficients, and a multiple regression analysis. The result of this study was significant positive correlation between attitude toward withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment and consciousness of biomedical ethics(r=.266, p<.001), good death recognition(r=.373, p<.001), meaning of life(r=.122, p=.037). The meaning of life was significant positive correlation consciousness of biomedical ethics(r=.294, p<.001), good death recognition(r=.230, p<.001). The good death recognition was significant positive correlation consciousness of biomedical ethics(r=.306, p<.001). Factors Influencing on the attitude toward withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment was good death recognition(${\beta}=.32$, p<.001) and consciousness of biomedical ethics(${\beta}=.16$, p=.004). These factors explained about 16% of the variance. Therefore it is necessary to develop an educational program to positively raise the attitude of consciousness of biomedical ethics and good death recognition.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.14-22
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• 2018

Purpose: This study examined the effects of a hospice palliative education program for adults on their perception of hospice, attitude towards death, and meaning of life. Methods: This study was a quasi-experimental study with a non-equivalent control group design. Among 43 participants, 22 were assigned to the non-equivalent experimental group and 21 to the control group. The hospice palliative education program comprised 10 three-hour sessions, each given once a week. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test and ${\chi}^2-test$ using SPSS version 20.0. Results: Significant differences between the experimental and control groups were observed in their perception of hospice (t=6.63, P<0.001), attitude towards death (t=2.36, P=0.023), and meaning of life (t=5.06, P<0.001). Conclusion: The results indicate that this education program could positively affect the perception of hospice, attitude toward death, and meaning of life in adults. More studies are warranted to explore the effects of this education program for various age groups so that it may help more people get positive understanding of hospice palliative care. The results suggest this program could help improve the negative perception of hospice, negative attitude towards death and meaning of life that are generally held by the public.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.130
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• pp.161-186
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• 2014

Recently, the social concerns on well dying come to the fore as important discourse on dignity of human death, which detonation by the problem of euthanasia. Well dying means 'good death' the meaning of a word, and it means 'prepared death', 'decented death' 'beautiful death' by extention of sematic context like this as a general rule. In this paper the writter have considered that how the view of Buddhism's death contribute to the discourse on well dying, which regarding death as the starting point, death conquest as the finishing point of the theory. The Buddhism's discourse on the attitude interpretation conquest process of death contributed to formation of abundant discourse on well dying, especially the view of Buddhism is able to contribute to conquest of death anxiety and death education, that death conquest interpret to spiritual psychological phenomenon not physical physiological eternal life (or immortality) and conquer death through enlightenment on reality of things by spiritual psychological change.