Can Exposure to Online Conversations About Death and Dying Influence Death Competence? An Exploratory Study Within an Australian Massive Open Online Course

Abstract

A Massive Open Online Course, Dying2Learn, was designed to foster community death conversations and strengthen community awareness of palliative care and death as a normal process. This exploratory study used a pre-post prospective design to determine if participation in Dying2Learn and exposure to online conversations about death and dying resulted in any significant influence on death competence in 134 participants who completed the Coping-with-Death-Scale both at the beginning and end of the course in 2016. Death competence refers to a range of attitudes and capabilities people have for dealing with death. Results at the end of the course indicated that engagement in Dying2Learn led to significant improvements in death competence scores over time (medium-to-large effect size). The positive impact was greater for those who completed more of the course, and effectiveness did not depend on sociodemographic characteristics. In conclusion, this study found that an online learning platform in the form of a Massive Open Online Course could engage community members in meaningful social discussion about death and dying, and that exposure to these conversations was beneficial for all participants regardless of previous exposure to death. Further exploration is required to determine whether this change in death competence will have an impact on participant's behavior in the community regarding death conversations and preparedness.

Words describing feelings about death: A comparison of sentiment for self and others and changes over time

“…The application of sentiment analysis to death and dying attitudes and emotions represents a unique opportunity to form a deeper understanding about how the public perceive this topic, which is increasing importance to health policy and service delivery. Textual sentiment analysis of how a person describes death can build upon knowledge gained from more traditional self-report measures like surveys [5][6][7][54][55][56] and enable a more comprehensive triangulation of this phenomenon [29].…”

“…However, the current evidence base is limited and there have been calls for more rigorous research to better capture public views on dying and death. Understanding contemporary community attitudes and feelings towards death is valuable because it may inform the development of future health services, improve patient and family care at the end-of-life, and it may also inform policy on ways to encourage conversations leading to greater death preparedness and planning [3,[5][6][7].…”

Participation in an Online Course about Death and Dying: Exploring Enrolment Motivations and Learning Goals of Health Care Workers

“…A previous study on the 2016 Dying2Learn MOOC showed that following the MOOC, participants developed personal insight and better understanding to the topic of death and dying. More importantly, participants also became more comfortable discussing death [8]. It is hopeful that for doctors (and certainly other HCWs) participating in the course, this could translate into better patient care.…”

“…To understand the effects of online learning and discussion through a MOOC on participants' attitudes towards death and dying [8,9].…”

“…Registration and participation rates for the 2016 MOOC showed that there was a willingness to explore and discuss issues around death and dying and feedback was positive [8].…”