What do laypersons consider as a good death

This study was designed to understand laypersons’ attitude of good death.

A 53-item Good-Death Questionnaire (GDQ) was generated by applying “good-death principles” and past research on good death in Chinese people.

A total of 184 adults completed the questionnaire. The Cronbach’s alpha for the GDQ was 0.96. Factor analysis produced five factors: autonomy and choice, wish fulfillment, death preparation, spiritual support and afterlife, and symptom control. Elderly people had higher scores in “autonomy” than people aged ≤40 (52.71 ± 5.94 vs. 56.71 ± 3.82, P = 0.012). Chaplains had higher scores in “death preparation” than volunteers (76.09 ± 4.44 vs. 70.46 ± 6.49, P = 0.011) and higher scores in “spiritual support” than volunteer and farmers–workers–businessmen (32.97 ± 2.49 vs. 28.08 ± 5.06 and 29.69 ± 5.05, P = 0.002). People with Buddhist religious belief had higher scores in “spiritual support” than people without religious belief (31.10 ± 3.99 vs. 25.73 ± 3.13; P < 0.001). Religious devotion was positively related to “death preparation” and “spiritual support.” People who had witnessed death had lower scores of “autonomy and choice” than the inexperienced (55.41 ± 4.81 vs. 57.06 ± 3.85; P = 0.032).

Our results identified some major characteristics of good-death attitude among laypersons. Religious devotion has a positive impact on the attitude of good death.