Community Dwelling Adults’ Lived Experiences of Participating in Death Cafés: A Phenomenological Study With Photovoice

ABSTRACT

Aim

To explore community dwelling adults' lived experiences of participating in death café in Singapore.

Design

A descriptive phenomenological study with Photovoice.

Methods

A purposive sample of community dwelling adults who participated in a community-based death café was recruited for this study. Data was collected through online individual semi-structured interviews. The Colaizzi's six-step descriptive phenomenological analysis was conducted for data analysis.

Results

Twenty community dwelling adults who participated in a death café were recruited. Participants' experiences of the death café were expounded in four themes: appeals of attending death cafés, enabling features of death café, engaging in die-logues, and perceived impacts of death café on everyday lives. The participants were attracted to death cafés for various reasons including curiosity and grief. A comfortable environment, accompanied by open dialogues and refreshments, was credited as enablers for death conversations. Through these ‘die-logues’, the participants had a deeper understanding of death and began engaging in advance planning.

Conclusions

Death cafés provide a supportive environment for individuals to engage in death-related conversations that may not easily occur in daily life. By engaging in conversations about mortality within death cafés, participants are encouraged to take proactive steps towards advance planning.

Implications for the Profession and/or Patient Care

Findings from this study can guide the development of community-based interventions by highlighting the essential components required for a death café tailored to the Asian context.

Impact

This study describes the community dwelling adults' lived experiences of participating in a death café. The findings from this study underscore the role of informal conversations about death as a tool to promote population health based palliative care initiatives such as overcoming death taboos and stimulating advance care planning among community dwelling adults.

Reporting Method

The Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Studies was used.

Patient and Public Contribution

Community-dwelling adults participated in the interviews.