Awareness of Dying
Encyclopedia
Awareness of Dying is a 1965 book (ISBN 0-202-30763-8) by Barney Glaser
and Anselm Strauss
.
The book was also the first application of grounded theory
. Only two years later did Glaser and Strauss publish The Discovery of Grounded Theory
, a book on the methodology they developed while working on Awareness of Dying.
When Strauss came to the medical school of the University of California, San Francisco
, he looked for an interesting subject that would also get the attention of medical people. Visiting hospitals, he discovered that dying was a highly problematic issue.
Strauss started field studies and six months later hired Glaser from Columbia University
. Both researchers already had personal experience with the subject: Strauss had lost his mother and a friend in recent years, Glaser his father.
Strauss and Glaser suspected early on that the expectation of death by both the dying and the relatives were a key to understanding the interactions between those people. Their choice of hospitals and stations allowed them to compare various kinds of expectations. On a premature infant station, mortality was high but the patients were not aware of their impending deaths, while on an oncology station, dying was slow and differences in the awareness of dying were very pronounced. The typical situations were again different for emergency rooms and geriatrics or pediatrics departments.
Out of these field studies grew Awareness of Dying, a theory on the influence of awareness on the interaction with dying people. It differentiated between closed awareness, suspicion, mutual deception, and open awareness. The field studies had shown that the type of awareness had a significant impact on interaction — for instance, if patients were not aware of their dying, the nursing was often limited to the absolutely necessary in order to prevent open awareness.
Barney Glaser
Barney G. Glaser is an American sociologist and one of the founders of the grounded theory methodology.Glaser was born in San Francisco, California, and lives in Mill Valley. He received his BA degree at Stanford in 1952. He pursued academic studies at the University of Paris where he studied...
and Anselm Strauss
Anselm Strauss
Anselm Leonard Strauss was an American sociologist internationally known as a medical sociologist and as the developer of grounded theory, an innovative method of qualitative analysis widely used in sociology, nursing, education, social work, and...
.
The book was also the first application of grounded theory
Grounded theory
Grounded theory is a systematic methodology in the social sciences involving the generation of theory from data. It is mainly used in qualitative research, but is also applicable to quantitative data....
. Only two years later did Glaser and Strauss publish The Discovery of Grounded Theory
The Discovery of Grounded Theory
The Discovery of Grounded Theory is a 1967 book by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss on grounded theory.After their success with Awareness of Dying, Glaser and Strauss decided to write a book on methodology. The Discovery of Grounded Theory was meant to invite and motivate people to use the newly...
, a book on the methodology they developed while working on Awareness of Dying.
When Strauss came to the medical school of the University of California, San Francisco
University of California, San Francisco
The University of California, San Francisco is one of the world's leading centers of health sciences research, patient care, and education. UCSF's medical, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, and graduate schools are among the top health science professional schools in the world...
, he looked for an interesting subject that would also get the attention of medical people. Visiting hospitals, he discovered that dying was a highly problematic issue.
Strauss started field studies and six months later hired Glaser from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. Both researchers already had personal experience with the subject: Strauss had lost his mother and a friend in recent years, Glaser his father.
Strauss and Glaser suspected early on that the expectation of death by both the dying and the relatives were a key to understanding the interactions between those people. Their choice of hospitals and stations allowed them to compare various kinds of expectations. On a premature infant station, mortality was high but the patients were not aware of their impending deaths, while on an oncology station, dying was slow and differences in the awareness of dying were very pronounced. The typical situations were again different for emergency rooms and geriatrics or pediatrics departments.
Out of these field studies grew Awareness of Dying, a theory on the influence of awareness on the interaction with dying people. It differentiated between closed awareness, suspicion, mutual deception, and open awareness. The field studies had shown that the type of awareness had a significant impact on interaction — for instance, if patients were not aware of their dying, the nursing was often limited to the absolutely necessary in order to prevent open awareness.