An international survey of death education trends in faculties of nursing and medicine.

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the availability of death education, including teaching and evaluation methods, specific content areas, issues being addressed, and the background and expertise of the faculty members involved in teaching death and dying content. A questionnaire was developed based on the current literature and sent to 80 faculties of nursing and 36 faculties of medicine in Canada and the United Kingdom. The majority of nursing and medical schools that responded to the survey included death education, an integrated approach, through all years of their programs. Despite recent criticisms of Kubler-Ross's model of grieving, the majority of programs reported using her theory most frequently. The findings identify the current status of death education for health professionals in Canada and the United Kingdom, and implications for curriculum changes are discussed.