Public Attitudes to Death, Dying and Bereavement

Project Duration

April 2009 - October 2009

Funder

The National Council for Palliative Care/The National End of Life Care Programme

Funding

£40,000

Project Staff

Jane Seymour (PI) ¹

Co-grant holders

Tony Arthur ¹
Karen Cox ¹
Kristian Pollock ¹
Wendy Stanton ¹

Researchers

Sheila Kennedy ¹
Arun Kumar ¹

Staff Institutions

The University of Nottingham

Aims

To review published research based literature and 'grey' literature produced since 1988 in the UK and internationally which relates to public attitudes to death, dying and bereavement
To examine issues of diversity and similarity within the material across age, culture and ethnicity, social-economic location, gender, sexual orientation and other salient dimensions
To describe, from a review of published research, policy and 'grey' literature produced in the last ten years in the UK and internationally, the range and character of initiatives focused on raising public awareness of death, dying and bereavement issues
To evaluate the limitations, benefits and other outcomes of initiatives focused on raising public awareness of death, dying and bereavement issues
To scope what public awareness campaigns relating to death, dying and bereavement have occurred in the last 10 years, which organisations led them, what form they took and to collate any published reports or commentaries relating to their outcomes
To consult with a network of national and international colleagues relating emergent thinking in modes of raising public awareness in this field

Methods

A systematic review of literature of qualitative and quantitative research, and campaigns to raising pubic awareness about issues relating to death, dying and bereavement.

Outcomes and Findings

This project was commissioned by the National Council for Palliative Care and the National End of Life Care Programme following publication of the End of Life Strategy for England.

In the Strategy it is argued that there persists a lack of public openness about death, which is likely to have a number of negative consequences, including: fear of the process of dying, lack of knowledge about how to request and access services, lack of openness between close family members when a person is dying and isolation of the bereaved. There is conflicting evidence about these claims and an absence of any coherent summary of what evidence exists in relation to them. The findings will be used to inform the work of a new national coalition 'Dying Matters: Let's Talk About It'.

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Contact the team

Publications

Executive Summary (PDF)

Seymour JE, French J, Richardson E (2010) Dying matters: let’s talk about it. BMJ, 341:c4860

Cox, K., Bird, L., Arthur, A., Kennedy, S., Pollock, K., Kumar, A., Stanton, W. and Seymour, J., 2012. Public attitudes to death and dying in the UK: a review of published literature BMJ Supportive and Palliative Care. (In Press.)