A Phenomenological Study on older adults’ Awareness of Well-Dying through a Well-Dying Group Counseling Program

Objectives This study aimed to examine the meaning and structure of older adults’ well-dying awareness experience through a well-dying group counseling program in order to gain an in-depth understanding of it. Methods Data were collected from January 2023 to July 2023 through in-depth interviews and recordings of six people 65 years of age who participated in a well-dying group counseling program in Gyeonggi-do, and Colaizzi's phenomenological study method was used to derive the essential structure of the phenomena experienced by the participants. Results The research resulted in a total of 24 sub-themes and a total of 8 cluster of themes were derived. The well-dying awareness experiences of older adults who participated in a well-dying group counseling program were ‘Redefinition of the remaining life and death', ‘Rediscovery of the past life’, ‘Expectation for small changes', ‘Continuous efforts in present life', ‘Recognition of the importance of living life together', ‘Death is an irresistible force of nature', ‘My own way of dealing with death that I want to face', and ‘Anxious feelings were revealed as remaining task'. Conclusions The significance of this study based on the above research results is that it supplements the results of existing quantitative research on the well-dying program targeting older adults with qualitative analysis. In addition, as the meaning and structure of the lived experience of well-dying awareness of older adults have been identified, it has become possible to provide basic information such as psychological education and counseling programs for well-dying awareness of older adults.