BACKGROUND Although dignity is increasingly considered a goal of palliative care, little research has evaluated the understanding of dignity at the end of life from a caregiver's perspective. OBJECTIVE The study objective was to investigate and compare the views of trained volunteers and SCEN physicians on maintaining dignity for patients reaching the end of life. DESIGN The study is a surv...

This paper explores the relationship between dignity and robot companions for the elderly. It highlights concerns about the maintenance of the dignity of vulnerable elderly people, and points out some of the contradictory uses of the word ‘dignity’. Some authors have resolved the contradictions by identifying different senses; contrasting the inviolable dignity inherent in human life to other f...

BACKGROUND Nurses have a professional duty to respect patients' dignity. There is a dearth of research about patients' dignity in acute hospital settings. OBJECTIVE The study investigated the meaning of patient dignity, threats to patients' dignity, and how patient dignity can be promoted, in acute hospital settings. DESIGN A qualitative, triangulated single case study design (one acute hos...

Kant famously claims that autonomy is the ground of dignity. If he is correct about the grounding relationship, then doubts about our autonomy entail doubts about our dignity. Here, I attempt to show that Kant is sensitive to this problem, and invokes the ‘fact of reason’ (Faktum der Vernunft) as the key piece of evidence for our autonomy, and therefore our dignity. But as is well known, Kant’s...

Before introducing the theory of workplace dignity in depth, this chapter reviews the broader landscape of human dignity to establish a foundation for the new theory. A theory of workplace dignity is in important ways different from human dignity, but in equally important ways builds upon the rich tradition of writers and writings about human dignity and how it has been defined in terms of what...

OBJECTIVES Previous studies found that hospital and specialty have limited influence on patient experience scores, and patient level factors are more important. This could be due to heterogeneity of experience delivery across subunits within organisations. We aimed to determine whether organisation level factors have greater impact if scores for the same subspecialty microsystem are analysed in...

Modern human rights instruments ground human rights in the concept of human dignity, without providing an underlying theory of human dignity. This paper examines the central importance of human dignity, understood as not humiliating people, in traditional Jewish ethics. It employs this conception of human dignity to examine and criticize U.S. use of humiliation tactics and torture in the interr...

The purpose of this article is to develop a conception of death with dignity and to examine whether it is vulnerable to the sort of criticisms that have been made of other conceptions. In this conception "death" is taken to apply to the process of dying; "dignity" is taken to be something that attaches to people because of their personal qualities. In particular, someone lives with dignity if t...

The basic tenets of palliative care may be summarized as the goal of helping patients to die with dignity. The term "dignity" provides an overarching framework that may guide the physician, patient, and family in defining the objectives and therapeutic considerations fundamental to end-of-life care. Dignity-conserving care is care that may conserve or bolster the dignity of dying patients. Usin...

BACKGROUND Dignity therapy is a unique, individualised, short-term psychotherapy that was developed for patients (and their families) living with life-threatening or life-limiting illness. We investigated whether dignity therapy could mitigate distress or bolster the experience in patients nearing the end of their lives. METHODS Patients (aged ≥18 years) with a terminal prognosis (life expect...