Paliatívna medicína a liečba bolesti 1-2e/2020

The Values and Perceived Meaningfulness of Life of Dying Patients

The aim of examining the perceived meaningfulness of life and the preferred values in the lives of terminally ill patients, is to gain as much knowledge as possible about the values that accompany patients in the last stages of their lives and play a role in communication and decision-making. For our research, we evaluated 116 patients, of whom 17 we were able to administer the entire battery. We investigated whether there is a relationship between the level of life satisfaction and the perceived meaning of life. We used Pearson‘s correlation to determine the relationship between the variables, and we found a very strong relationship (r = -0.918; p <0.001). In terms of values, the most preferred values of our respondents include: Love (N = 17), Family (N = 17), Dignity (N = 13), Hope (N = 11), Health (N = 12) Although health chose up to twelve patients among the seven most preferred values, it was in most cases at the 4th to 6th ranks of the ranking of selected values. Regarding the dimensions that included connotational associations of patients, five associations fell under the biological dimension, six under the psychic dimension and 1 under the noetic dimension. It turned out to be very interesting that the connotative understanding of the dignity of terminally ill patients corresponds to the basic ideas of hospice care, such as honest health information, fair treatment of patients, respect for the uniqueness of each patient and expressions of humanity.

Keywords: values, perceived meaningfulness of life, quality of life, palliative care