Effects of public education of hospice and palliative care on meaning in life, depression, and death anxiety according to age groups in the Republic of Korea

This study was performed to develop a universally accessible education program for death preparation and to evaluate the effectiveness of the program.

The subjects of this study were 91 people who participated in 11 sessions of the education program, ‘Beautiful & Dignified My Life’, which was conducted by the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) from August 10 to October 2, 2015. The data were collected before and after the education program using structured questionnaires, which included socioeconomics, meaning in life, death anxiety, and depression. Data were analyzed using chi-square tests, t-tests, one-way ANOVA, paired t-tests, and ANCOVA with IBM SPSS 23.0 program.

After the education program, the meaning in life was significantly increased in all age groups (under 49 years: t=-2.92, p=.009; 50 to 59 years: t=-2.50, p=.002; 60 and older: t=-3.88, p<.001) and the depression was significantly decreased in age groups of 50s and 60s and older (50 to 59 years: t=2.11, p=.045; 60 and older: t=4.37, p<.001). After controlling pretest scores of meaning in life as a covariate, depression in the post-test differed significantly by age groups (F=8.53, p<.001). Scheffe’s test for post hoc comparisons showed that the age group of under 49 were more likely to have higher depression scores than other age groups.

These findings imply that public education program for death preparation could help the people discover their meaning in life and diminish their depression.