Nurses perform a vital role in the care of dying patients and their families. Hence, experiences of nurses are a meaningful source from which to advance holistic end-of-life care. In this study, a hermeneutic phenomenological perspective was used to explore the phenomenon of end-of-life nursing care. Details derived from a scientific exploration into the experiences of 13 registered nurses who provided care for patients and families at end-of-life in the inpatient hospital setting offer understandings regarding this important phenomenon. The hermeneutic phenomenological methods of Max van Manen guided data collection and analysis. Three main themes described the participants’ experience of nursing care at end-of-life: “Confronting Challenges,” “Coming to Understand End-of-Life Care,” and “Transforming the Understanding of End-of-Life Care into Nursing Practice.” Recommendations for nursing education, practice, and research were derived.

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This thesis examines attitudes and approaches towards death, as well as aesthetic representations of death, in Anglo-Saxon hagiography. The thesis contributes to the discussion of the historical and intellectual contexts of hagiography and considers how saintly death-scenes are represented to form commentaries on exemplary behaviour. A comprehensive survey of death-scenes in Anglo-Saxon hagiography has been undertaken, charting typical and atypical motifs used in literary manifestations of both martyrdom and non-violent death. The clusters of literary motifs found in these texts and what their use suggests about attitudes to exemplary death is analysed in an exploration of whether Anglo-Saxon hagiography presents a consistent aesthetic of death. The thesis also considers how modern scholarly fields such as thanatology can provide fresh discourses on the attitudes to and depictions of ‘good' and ‘bad' deaths. Moreover, the thesis addresses the intersection of the hagiographic inheritance with discernibly Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards death and dying, and investigates whether or not the deaths of native Anglo-Saxon saints are presented differently compared with the deaths of universal saints. The thesis explores continuities and discontinuities in the presentations of physical and spiritual death, and assesses whether or not differences exist in the depiction of death-scenes based on an author's personal agenda, choice of terminology, approaches towards the body–soul dichotomy, or the gender of his or her subject, for example. Furthermore, the thesis investigates how hagiographic representations of death compare with portrayals in other literature of the Anglo-Saxon period, and whether any non-hagiographic paradigms provide alternative exemplars of the ‘good death'. The thesis also assesses gendered portrayals of death, the portrayal of last words in saints' lives, and the various motifs relating to the soul at the moment of death. The thesis contains a Motif Index of saintly death-scenes as Appendix I.

This thesis deals with ethical dimension of homeless people´s life and dying. It is devoted to ethical questions of homelessness phenomenon and is primary aimed at dignity and reasonability of life on the street, value system of homeless persons, influenced by the way of their life, and feeling about their own mortality. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse how the homeless people feel about the reasonability of life and their own mortality, in the framework of their value system, and about their responsibility for their situation or if they devolve it to others or state. Using qualitative research techniques it analyses realized controlled interviews with homeless persons in thier own environment, that helps to clarify their perception of life and dying on the street. Research aggregate was made up of 15 homeless persons living in the territory of the city České Budějovice.

Bc. Monika Pavelková ABSTRACT The aim of the paper is to study closely the influence of spirituality on attitude towards death among people who find themselves in a situation of proximity to death. Due to the fact that spirituality proves to be a significant factor influencing the process of accepting death, increasing attention is paid nowadays to the spiritual component of personality and to saturation of its spiritual needs. Spirituality is understood in a broader sense as relation towards sanctity of either a religious or an irreligious person. Another aspect is the means by which the person comes to terms with own spirituality, whether it is intrinsic and becomes the goal of the person's life-long endeavour, or it can be described as extrinsic because it does not permeate his or her everyday reality. Spiritual orientation of a person is projected into his or her values and goals, it determines the way towards the meaning of life, which exceeds the person proper. V. E. Frankl speaks about reaching the meaning of life through self- transcendence by way of realization of values of creation, experiences and attitudes. A pronounced element of spirituality and attitude towards death is the belief in life after death, be it literal or symbolic, with reference to Terror Management Theory or Meaning Management...

The thesis focuses on the possibilities to use elements of palliative hospice care in the retirement home. The work describes basic theoretical themes such as human dignity, its interpretation and dignified dying. It also presents basic issues concerning dying and death, ethical problems of different phases of dying, as well as the dying person's needs. The thesis tries to answer the question about the possibility of dignified dying through the use of hospice care. It also defines palliative care provided in hospices as one of the approaches to long-term care of dying people. The research analyses two standards of nursing care in retirement homes The care of a dying person and The care of a dead person. It presents results of its own research method realized through semi-structured interviews with clients of a retirement home. The aim of the research is to find out whether the clients themselves are interested in application of hospice palliative care in the retirement home.

This diploma work deals with hospice and a quality of care given to the clients of the hospice, that fully covers complex needs, changing during a life limiting illness, taking in account the dignity of the human being to the very last moment of his life. This care is a promise for a man, that he won´t be alone in the burdensome moments of his life. There are a hospice management and various forms of hospice care in Czech Republic described in a theoretical part of the work. This chapter is to be a handbook for providing companionship to the dying person and is to draw our attention not only to the changing priorities of the dying person and to stages, that he is to go through, but to an irreplaceable role of a caregiver at his bed. In a practical part of this work there are investigated the attitudes of the caregivers in hospice and public to the process of dying of the human being. The founded results of the research show, that people finding themselves in a final stage of the life-limiting illness change their priorities; the spiritual needs become more important, especially to attain a peace with self, with other people; clients trusting in God long for consilience with God; the results of the research show however, that most public is not familiar enough with the problem of dying and death, and that there is generally low knowledge on how to provide companionship to the dying person.

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