Representing death in psychology: Hospice nurses’ lived experiences

Abstract

This article describes the social representations of death held by two groups of nurses in a hospice setting. Focus group interviews, one with White British nurses and the other with Filipino nurses, were conducted in order to explore their representations of death and how these related to their daily lived work experience. An interpretative phenomenological analysis identified that super-ordinate themes of death are an emotional response and death is a wall to human intervention. Both cultural groups identified with these themes in different ways, and the authors contend that their representations of death functioned as symbolic coping strategies which protected participants within their work environment. It is suggested that such an approach could be usefully utilised within health psychology to provide a more context-dependent method of looking at individual or group experiences.

Keywords:

• hospice nurses
• critical health psychology
• interpretative phenomenological analysis
• social representation
• symbolic coping strategy