Impact of death education on the view of life and death,emotional state and the quality of life of the elderly patients with terminally ill cancer

Objective To investigate the impact of death education on the view of life and death,emotional state and the quality of life of the elderly patients with terminally ill cancer. Methods 197 patients were randomly divided into the education group (n = 92) and the control group (n = 105) . The patients in both groups received the conventional basic nursing and symptom control treatment. The patients of education group received individualized death education aditionally,1 to 2 times per week,for 4 weeks. The self-edited questionnaire survey,POMS and EORTC QLQ-C30 evaluation were conducted on the patients before and after the education. Results After the death education,the view of life and death of the patients,and their life outlook turned more positive (P 0. 01) ; their depression-dejection,tension-anxiety, anger-hostility and other emotional factor scores were significantly reduced(P 0. 01) . After the education,the emotional function,cognitive function,social function and the total score of QLQ-C30 of the patients were increased significantly (P 0. 01) . Conclusions The death education can make the elderly patients with terminally ill cancer change the conception of death and values,improving mental health,eliminating the fear to death,concerns and pessimism,and improve their quality of life.