A Study About Hospice Care University Student Volunteers' Fear Of Death

Hospice care is a kind of positive and overall care for the dying patient. It aims at ensuring patients and their family members best life quality. Owning good mental quality and being not afraid of strikes brought by life-death misfortunes, is the necessary requirements for the service personnels related to hospice care. In our country, most of the hospice care university volunteers have not received death education before they take part in the services. And with the lack of the accumulation of life and social experiences, they always can't directly face the topic of death, the fear of death, and therefore the staff turnover of hosoice care is serious.The writer has participated in a 4-month term of hospice care voluntary service. Based on the enlightenment brought by the voluntary practise, the writer now focus on the phenomenon of hospice care university volunteers'fear of death. Through interview survey, we can find that taking part in hospice care service and the intervention of social work make the hospice care university volunteers strikingly change the causes and degrees of their fear of death. Before they participate in services, because of family members'death, family taboos and so on, volunteers'death fear is constrained. After entering the service spots, as a result of the hospital environment, patients'dying and passing away, volunteers are confronted with the shock of death again. Through social work's case work, group work, and special training for death education, university volunteers'feeling of death fear diminished, and they can also discover the value and meaning of life by having a deep understanding of the meanings of death.