Hospital care and communication tend to be focused on the individual patient, and decision making is typically based on the principle of individual autonomy. It can be questioned whether this approach is adequate when a patient is terminally ill.

In the Netherlands, there has been much debate on the question whether elderly people over 70 who are tired of life and who consider their life to be completed, should have legal options to ask for assisted dying. So far there has been little research into the experiences of these elderly people. In …

When patients die relatives and healthcare professionals may appreciate the quality of the dying phase differently, but comparisons are rare. In a cross-sectional study (June 2009–July 2012) the experiences of bereaved relatives, physicians, and nurses concerning the quality of dying in a large Dutch …

Background: To improve the quality of end-of-life care, hospitals increasingly appoint palliative care nurse champions.

Purpose of review: To summarize the latest research on the risks and consequences of the burden that may be imposed on informal carers of persons living and dying with advanced heart failure. Recent findings: A systematic search in PubMed over the period 2013–2014 ultimately revealed 24 original articles …

Context Most deaths in Western countries occur in hospital, but little is known about factors determining the quality of dying (QOD). Objectives The aim was to assess the QOD in hospital as experienced by relatives and identify factors related to QOD. Methods A cross-sectional study on 18 wards …

Reading a novel about a dying person and the people attending the dying, one can not only reflect upon the moral involvement between the literary characters depicted, but also upon the way in which the reader takes the position of a “bystander” in this scene. In two novels, The Death of Ivan Ilyich by …

Hoe verhalen en symbolen kunnen bijdragen aan de dramatherapeutische behandeling van een kind met gecompliceerde rouwverwerkingsproblematiek.

In studies of soldiers’ fears and behavior during war it has been generally acknowledged that their paramount concern is not fear of death, but the fate of their comrades and subordinates. This study aims to delve deeper into this issue. This study deals with the impact of actual death threat on self-perceptions …