The Meaning of Dignified Dying Perceived by Nursing Students

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand the meaning of dignified dying expressed by undergraduate nursing students. Method: Data were collected by in-depth interviews with fifteen nursing students. Conventional qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the data. Result: There were six major themes and eleven sub-categories from the analysis. Six major themes include death with no artificial life support, obedient death as a human nature, death with family members, meaningful death, no self destructive death, and sympathized death receiving from health care providers. Conclusion: The result of this study suggests that the nursing curriculum related to dignified dying can be developed and may affect the teaching and learning settings to improve end-of-life care performance among undergraduate nursing students, as well as, students in human service areas and health care providers.