Deathbed scenes as imagined by the young and experienced by the old

Abstract

This study compares the deathbed scenes anticipated by students enrolled in university death education courses with the actual deathbed scenes experienced by elderly people with terminal cancer. Most students expected to live into old age and then die (a) at home, (b) with the companionship of loved ones, (c) quickly (usually in a day or less), and (d) without pain or other symptoms, while (e) remaining alert and lucid. Thoughts about an afterlife were seldom introduced. The students' concept of a deathbed scene worse than the expected usually involved the addition of pain or “lingering on.” Respondents found it difficult to improve on their expected deathbed scene because, in effect, they had already substituted “desired” for “most likely to happen.” Location of the deathbed scene in old age is consistent with the probable life expectancy of the respondents, but the easeful death (quick and asymptomatic) is at variance with observations made of terminally ill people. Comparisons are made with data from an ongoing study of deathbed scenes of patients receiving hospice care and from the National Hospice Study. A major purpose of this study is to introduce the deathbed scene as a situation deserving clinical and conceptual attention, and to make available a set of primary coding categories useful in developing a basic data base.