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Jo: Development and Evaluation of a Dignified Dying Scale for Korean Adults
Original Article
Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing

Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing 2011; 41(3): 313-324.

Published online: 13 June 2011

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4040/jkan.2011.41.3.313

Development and Evaluation of a Dignified Dying Scale for Korean Adults

Kae-Hwa Jo

Professor, College of Nursing, Catholic University of Daegu, Daegu, Korea.

Address reprint requests to: Jo, Kae-Hwa. College of Nursing, Catholic University of Daegu, 3056-6 Daemyeong 4-dong, Nam-gu, Daegu 705-718, Korea. Tel: +82-53-650-4825, Fax: +82-53-621-4106, jokw@cu.ac.kr

Received 20 August 2010       Accepted 7 June 2011

© 2011 Korean Society of Nursing Science

Abstract

Purpose

The study was done to develop a dignified dying scale for Korean adults.

Methods

The process included construction of a conceptual framework, generation of initial items, verification of content validity, selection of secondary items, preliminary study, and extraction of final items. The participants were 428 adults who lived in one of 3 Korean metropolitan cities: Seoul, Daegu, and Busan. Item analysis, factor analysis, criterion related validity, and internal consistency were used to analyze the data. Data collection was done from March to June 2010.

Results

Thirty items were selected for the final scale, and categorized into 5 factors explaining 54.5% of the total variance. The factors were labeled as maintaining emotional comfort (10 items), arranging social relationship (9 items), avoiding suffering (3 items), maintaining autonomous decision making (4 items), and role preservation (4 items). The scores for the scale were significantly correlated with personal meanings of death scale. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the 30 items was .92.

Conclusion

The above findings indicate that the dignified dying scale has a good validity and reliability when used with Korean adults.

Keywords: Dignity, Death, Scale, Adult

Figures and Tables

Figure 1
Conceptual framework of dignified dying of Korean adults.
jkan-41-313-g001
Table 1
Demographic Characteristics of Participants (N=428)
jkan-41-313-i001
Table 2
Item Analysis (N=428)
jkan-41-313-i002

*Item deleted by item analysis.

Table 3
Factor Analysis and Reliability (N=428)
jkan-41-313-i003
Table 4
Correlation between Dignified Dying Scale and Personal Me-aning of Death Scale (N=428)
jkan-41-313-i004

Notes

This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2010-0007170).

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