Follow-up study of recent graduates: the value of death education in their curriculum

Graduates from three coordinated dietetics programs who had participated in a research project in which a death education curriculum unit for dietetic students was developed, implemented, and evaluated, were mailed questionnaires to ask their opinion of their undergraduate preparation to work with terminally/seriously ill clients. Graduates agreed that including death education was important in their preparation as dietitians and suggested expanding the topics. For the subjects in this sample, neither death education as a student nor work experience with the dying since graduation has changed their attitude score on three scales: Death Fear, Disengagement from Death Fear, and Dietetic Attitude. Although this is a very small sample, the findings suggest that attitudes about death and working with the dying are resistant to change. Members of this group, both as students and as graduates, indicated that the unit was helpful to them in doing what they perceive as a difficult part of their job. This project suggests that developing support systems for students in their clinical experience and for professional dietitians to help manage the stress of working with seriously and terminally ill clients should be one of the goals of death education rather than trying to change attitudes toward death on either a pre-service or an in-service basis.