This study was done to evaluate the effects of dignity interventions on depression, anxiety and meaning of life in terminally ill patients.

PubMed, Cochrane Library CENTRAL, EMBASE, CINAHL and several Korean databases were searched. The main search strategy combined terms indicating dignity intervention, presence of terminal illness and study design. Methodological quality was assessed using Cochrane's Risk of Bias for randomized studies and Risk of Bias Assessment tool for non randomized studies. Data were analyzed by the RevMan 5.2.11 program of Cochrane Library.

Twelve clinical trials met the inclusion criteria with a total of 878 participants. Dignity intervention was conducted for a mean of 2.2 weeks, 2.8 sessions and an average of 48.7 minutes per session. Effect sizes were heterogeneous and subgroup analysis was done. Dignity interventions had a significant effect on depression (ES=-1.05, p<.001, I²=15%) and anxiety (ES=-1.01, p<.001, I²=0). For meaning of life, dignity interventions were effective (ES=-1.64, p=.005) and effect sizes were still heterogeneous.

Results support findings that dignity interventions can assist terminal ill patients in reducing emotional distress and improving meaning of life. Further well-designed dignity studies will lead to better understanding of the effects of treatments on spiritual well-being.

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

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.

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.

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