On the meanings and experiences of living and dying in an Australian hospice

Abstract

Drawing on qualitative interviews with patients near death, in this article we explore people's experiences of living and dying in a hospice in-patient unit. The results illustrate the tensions and complexities of entering into the hospice environment and how its character (i.e. people, interactions and spaces) shapes experiences near death.The results illustrate the hospice in-patient unit as playing a vitally important role in supporting the end of life, but also, the unique challenges this environment presents to individual well-being. Key themes emergent from the interviews were: loss of self and identity nostalgia; liminality and the home/help dialectic; and the performative elements of dying. To explore and unpack these processes, we draw together different facets of previous conceptual work in sociology, working towards a more nuanced conceptualization of the in-patient hospice experience. © The Author(s) 2011.