Pegg Warnick

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

1993

Thesis Director

Melanie McKee (Mills)

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study is to discover and examine the coping strategies concerning death and dying from the perspectives of hospice patients and hospice volunteers. A review of applicable literature, informal but structured interviews and participant observation are procedures for the study. The focus of the study lies in three areas: what are the internal attributes used to cope?; what are the external support systems used to cope? and, what are the adjustments in personal goals? Research for this study was patterned after Hegge's study (1991) who surveyed the coping strategies of the recently widowed elderly. The instruments were changed only to better reflect the circumstances of the patients and volunteers. Patients and volunteers associated with Decatur Memorial Hospital's (DMH) Hospice were chosen for the study. Ten patients participated in the study. For each patient, a one-hour informal interview was conducted in the home. Telephone interviews, with a one-hour timeframe, were used for the volunteers. The study reveals that the key words for both patients and volunteers coping with death and dying are faith and acceptance. Faith was not only identified as a major coping strategy for both the patients and the volunteers facing the fact that the patient was dying, but was also used when patients and volunteers faced other major crises in their lives. Acceptance, for patients, is two-pronged. The first acceptance is the acceptance of their own death. The second phase of acceptance is one of accepting the physical restrictions their diseases have imposed upon them. In volunteers, the acceptance of the death of their patients was understood. Those deaths appear to have no measurable effect on volunteers. For both patients and volunteers, faith and self-reliance were paramount in their acceptance of the situation. To develop a better understanding of how people cope with death and dying, this thesis will address the following research questions:

1. What are the coping strategies of the dying patient? Through what communicative forms does the patient discuss the grief and/or loss and other concerns of their illness?

2. How does the death of a hospice patient affect the hospice volunteer? Once a patient dies, what are the coping strategies of the hospice volunteer? Through what communicative forms does the hospice volunteer express those effects?

3. How does the hospice volunteer function as a liaison between the patient and the impending death of the patient? Through what communicative forms is the subject of death approached?

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