老年期の死の意味づけを巡る研究知見と課題

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the meaning of death, especially of the elderly people in Japan. First of all, this paper provides some definitions of death-related concepts, i.e. death anxiety, fear of death, death acceptance, and especially the definition of death attitudes and the meaning of death will be discussed. Furthermore, the methodological issues on the meaning of death in the Western world will be treated. In addition, a review of the literature on the meaning of death will be provided. Moreover, studies on the meaning of death of the older populations in Japan will be described and the structure of the meaning of death proposed by the results obtained from statistical analysis will be provided. In this review, some of the demographic and personal factors that influence the personal constructs of the meaning of death are discussed. Finally, the problems of current research and future possible approaches will be proposed. In particular, the great potentialities of qualitative research that capture some of the complexities and fruitfulness of the human encounter with death are proposed in the final section.