The utility and feasibility of incorporating death cafes in undergraduate education: A qualitative exploration of medical and nursing students' perspectives.

BACKGROUND

The current medical and nursing curricula place little emphasis on palliative and end-of-life care. Consequently, students are less comfortable in communicating about topics related to death and dying when providing palliative and end-of-life care. Death cafés utilizes a facilitator-led small group to encourage conversations about death and dying to take place alongside food and beverages in a safe environment. In light of the presence of death taboos, there is a need to understand how medical and nursing students perceive the incorporation of a death café within the undergraduate program.

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to explore the perceptions of medical and nursing students regarding the utility and feasibility of incorporating death cafés into their undergraduate education.

DESIGN

A qualitative study was conducted.

METHODS

This study was conducted in one medical school in a university in Singapore. Participants above the ages of 18 years, pursuing a full time undergraduate medical or nursing program were invited. A purposive sampling approach using the maximum variation sampling technique to enhance representativeness was used to select the participants based on their sociodemographic and academic variables. A total of 32 medical and nursing students were included in the study. Online individual interviews were conducted. The interviews were then transcribed and analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

RESULTS

Three main categories were developed from the content analysis: (1) Perceptions of death cafés, (2) Features of a death café, and (3) Contents of a death café conversation. Participants viewed the death café as a platform for conversations surrounding death and dying. Several features such as the presence of a facilitator and discussions to be held in small groups were surfaced. The proposed topics to be discussed ranged from communication skills, coping with death encounters, and understanding more about the concepts of palliative care.

CONCLUSION

Medical and nursing students view death cafes as a feasible and potential approach in learning pallative and end-of-life care. The use of a faciliator-guided small group discussion on topics such as coping with death, communication techniques and concepts of palliative care are proposed. Further work is needed to examine how the death café method can potentially impact students' confidence and skills in managing palliative and end-of-life care.