Attitudes of Palestinian and Polish Medical Students Towards Death

Abstract

Attitudes of students of health-related subjects towards the death are an important issue showing the behaviour and values ​​that guide young people in everyday interactions. The study was conducted using the Questionnaire About Attitudes Against Death (DAP-R-PL) among 309 students, including 150 Palestinian from the Faculty of Nursing and Health Sciences and 159 Polish from the Faculty of Health Sciences. It was noticed that the attitude of Death Avoidance is higher in Palestinians than in Poles. The biggest difference between correlation indicators is for the factors fear of death and death avoidance (FD and DA). This value is positive for Palestinian respondents and negative for Polish respondents. The study confirms that the attitudes of students towards death from both universities in the perspective of 5 factors are positive and in future contacts with dying patients they will cope with this challenge.

Attitudes of Polish-speaking and English-speaking medical students towards death during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…It can be assumed that as a result of the outbreak of the pandemic, people have largely lost control of existential problems and feel insecure in the space of an unstable epidemiological situation. Similar results were observed in studies conducted among students who, as a result of the armed conflict with Israel, live in constant fear for their lives [13].…”

“…The above thesis is confirmed by the results of other studies conducted in this matter [13,26,27]. The attitude of fear towards death negatively correlated with the neutral acceptance of death.…”

“…The attitude towards death undoubtedly depends on the cultural, emotional and religious level. It happens, that some students have a negative attitude towards death and it is not in line with the professed religious norms [13]. Fear of death may be associated with pain, suffering, thinking about losing everything that is a human property, disappearing, forgetting [14,15].…”

Attitudes and Experiences Towards Death of Healthcare Professionals Working in Neonatal Intensive Care Units

“…The results of the current study showed that men HPs avoided less thoughts and conversations about death in order to reduce death anxiety (death avoidance) in contrast to women, a finding that is consistent with the study by Asadpour et al (2016) which was conducted on a sample of medical students, but disagrees with Malliarou et al (2011b) who studied Greek nurses that provided palliative care to adults. Also, our study supports that men HPs believed less in the existence of a happy afterlife (approach acceptance), which is in accordance with other studies (Gama et al, 2012; Zdziarski et al, 2020) but contradicts the findings of Malliarou et al (2011b), where men showed greater faith in a happy afterlife. It may be assumed that men in our study were probably under the influence of social stereotypes that want them strong and invulnerable in adversities, pushing them in a way to discuss death issues more comfortably.…”

Existential and Spiritual Attitudes of Polish Medical and Nursing Staff towards Death

“…In the available literature, medical and nursing staff often refer to death as a transition, which may suggest that life continues after death. The above opinion indicates an ethical approach to death, but above all a spiritual attitude and a religious view of this phenomenon [ 11 , 12 ]. The results of other studies conducted in the medical world, e.g., among Palestinian and Polish medical students, confirm the thesis that people preparing to work in medical services have a positive existential and religious attitude to death [ 13 , 14 ].…”