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Attitudes toward death and death acceptance among hemato-oncologists: An Israeli sample

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2020

Shlomit Kraitenberger Open the ORCID record for Shlomit Kraitenberger [Opens in a new window] ,
Gil Goldezweig Open the ORCID record for Gil Goldezweig [Opens in a new window] ,
Ariel Aviv ,
Adir Shaulov  and
Michal Braun
Shlomit Kraitenberger
Affiliation:
The Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo, Tel-Aviv, Israel
Gil Goldezweig
Affiliation:
The Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo, Tel-Aviv, Israel
Ariel Aviv
Affiliation:
Haemek Medical Center, Afula, Israel
Adir Shaulov
Affiliation:
Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel
Michal Braun*
Affiliation:
The Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo, Tel-Aviv, Israel
*
Author for correspondence: Michal Braun, 610, Nes Harim 9988500, Israel. E-mail: bmichalpsy@gmail.com
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Abstract

Objective

Hemato-oncologists are highly exposed to patients’ death and suffering during their daily work. The current exploratory and cross-sectional study examined death acceptance attitudes, in order to explore whether death acceptance attitudes are associated with fear of death.

Method

A convenience sample of 50 Israeli hemato-oncologists currently working in a clinical setting participated in the study. They completed the Death Attitudes Profile revised questionnaire (DAP-R), which examines levels of fear of death, death avoidance, approach acceptance, neutral acceptance, and escape acceptance. In addition, the hemato-oncologists reported on levels of exposure to patients’ death and suffering.

Results

A repeated measures MANOVA revealed significantly lower levels of neutral acceptance, compared with approach and escape acceptance. Path analysis for predicting fear of death by the other study variables revealed that death avoidance fully mediated the relationship between approach acceptance and fear of death as well as revealing a negative correlation between neutral acceptance and fear of death (higher neutral acceptance was related to lower fear of death). No associations were found between exposure to death and suffering and attitudes toward death.

Significance of results

In contrast to previous conceptualizations, the ability to adaptively cope with fear of death differed in accordance with death acceptance attitudes. Whereas neutral acceptance adaptively defended from fear of death, approach acceptance was associated with increased fear of death through death avoidance. As hemato-oncologists are highly exposed to patients’ death and suffering, and are required to make critical medical decisions on daily basis, these findings may have substantial implications for end-of-life care and the process of medical decision-making regarding the choice of treatment goals: cure, quality of life, and life prolongment. Further research is needed to investigate the role of death acceptance attitudes among hemato-oncologists.

Keywords

Attitudes toward deathDeath acceptanceEnd-of-life careHemato-oncologists
Type
Original Article
Information
Palliative & Supportive Care , Volume 19 , Issue 5 , October 2021 , pp. 587 - 591
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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