About "dying well". Actor constellations, normative patterns, perspective differences

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With the institutionalisation of the hospice concept in inpatient hospices, on palliative care units and outpatient hospice and palliative care a normative ideal of dying well has been established which focuses a multiperspective view on dying processes: i. e. medical, psychic, social, and spiritual care. Different perceptions interfere: the medical one, the nursing one, the perception of the family members and the perspective on the dying person. Beyond that, there occur differences of actor constellations and perspectives which are not always arrangeable. Therefore, the planned research project asks how the ideal of a dying well is overtaken by empirically adjusting uncertainties.Our aim is 1. using a qualitative research method in inpatient hospices and palliative care units to detect the different perspectives and constellations, 2. to explicate the normative patterns which are associated with these differences of perspectives, and 3. to make visible how variants of modern practices of dying happen empirically. Both from the perspective of Catholic theology as well as from the sociological perspective the project searches for signs of contingency within the practice of dying and terminal care. The work program includes a qualitative research in hospices and palliative care units. Analyses of dying between the ideal of dying well and the inevitability of different perspectives of all participating groups will be revealed by means of different qualitative methods such as interviews with experts and non-participant observations. The evaluation is based on a functional analysis method which seeks for practical interrelating regarding problems of relations und references and their solutions.