The Social Construction of the “Dying Role” and the Hospice Drama

Datos Bibliográficos

ID13629196
AutoresDebra Parker-Oliver (Columbia, Missouri, autor de correspondencia)
Año2000
Volumen40
Número4
Páginas493-512
Fecha de publicación2000-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaOMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0030-2228 • E-ISSN: 1541-3764
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2190/yt9d-12y2-54ly-tcmn
OpenAlexW1965196629
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas9
Referencias citadas9

The social construction of a “dying role” is emerging in response to terminal illness for which the “sick role” is no longer functional. When people are in the process of dying, in the absence of a “dying role,” they take on the rights and responsibilities of the “sick role” to which they have been socialized. This is problematic for the individual who will not get well no matter how hard the effort. Hospice, a professional community with a central purpose of bringing the drama of dying to an appropriate close, marks the transition from a sick role to a dying role. This article looks at how the hospice community directs this transition and redefinition of self for the dying and significant others. Utilizing the symbolic interactionist and phenomenlogical perspective and the sick role theory of Talcott Parsons, this view of the drama is demonstrated through stories of hospice patients

Drama · Perspective (graphical · Sociology · Symbolic interactionism · Transition (genetics · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · Hermeneutics and Narrative Identity · Identity, Memory, and Therapy · Medicine · Psychology · Social Psychology