How Different Cultures React to Death and Dying

This research explores the literature across cultures on death and dying in order to highlight the impact of culture on reactions to death and the dying process. A theoretical framework is established, using Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's five stages of dying, followed by a succinct discussion of the reactions and attitudes toward death and the dying process of four cultures (Buddhist, Hindu, Native American and American). By illustrating the different reactions and attitudes toward death of these cultures, it is revealed that through increased cultural understanding health care workers can provide more personalized care to the dying.

Fear, Mortality, Burial, Religion, Buddhists, Hindus, Native Americans, Americans

According to Kart and Kinney (2001, p. 532), "Death is something that must be faced by everyone." Despite the inevitability and universality of death and the dying process, different reactions and perceptions of death arise in different cultures, from the conventional Judeo-Christian reaction in American culture to the belief in reincarnation in the Hindu culture. Bereavement, grief, and mourning often accompany the death and dying process, but as Kart and Kinney (2001, p. 532) make clear, these aspects of the process are typically "culturally proscribed." This discussion of different reactions to death and the dying process across cultures will focus on Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' five stag

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Buddhists. In fact, for the gerontologist, increased cultural understanding of the death and dying process aids overall quality of care. As Barker (1999, p. 161) reports on one study conducted on Hindus in a British community, "�poor communication due to linguistic and cultural distance between relatives and hospital staff, as well as lack of sensitivity involving the latter, may be most distressful to the dying and their relatives." Native Americans Native Americans also had and still have a unique perspective on death. It is doubtful Native Americans relate to any of the phases outlined by Kubler-Ross, save for acceptance. For Native Americans perceive death as merely one facet of what they view as the "Sacred hoop of life," (Turner-Weeden, 1995, p. 11). This is because of their unique worldview with respect to what happens to the soul after death. Native Americans view life and death as a circular movement, wherein the process merely represents a transformation and not finality. As Moffett (2004, p. 1) explains, "Since life is movement, but movement that is cyclical and not linear, physical death is nothing more than a change of both worlds and forms, because it is a circle from birth to death to rebirth." While there is mu

Category: Philosophy - H