Speaking about death: An ethnography of speaking, a study of a community hospice.

Abstract

This study of communication and health care focuses on how hospice medical personnel and their terminally ill patients talk about death and dying. It is a qualitative ethnographic study of a community hospice. The issues the study addresses are how hospice nurses and their patients experience death, talk about death, and how they make sense out of the dying process.

The seven month study was conducted at an out-patient community hospice, located in a small city in central Oklahoma. Extensive participant-observation was conducted during regular patient visitation by the nurses, at the weekly IDT meeting and with the rest of the hospice staff. Using Dell Hymes perspective of, 'ethnography of speaking' this study provides insight into a specific communication settings by understanding, the structure and function of it.