In this study, a death education program was performed on the victims of domestic violence, focusing on self-reflection and death and life experience, and its effectiveness on the quality of life, death anxiety, and death awareness of the female victi...
In this study, a death education program was performed on the victims of domestic violence, focusing on self-reflection and death and life experience, and its effectiveness on the quality of life, death anxiety, and death awareness of the female victims of domestic violence was investigated.
For this purpose, a literature review was conducted, and the program was performed on the female victims of domestic violence. Then, a quasi-experiment study was performed. In the literature review, previous studies on the concept and characteristics of domestic violence, death anxiety, death awareness, quality of life, and death education program, which had been studied in foreign countries and in Korea, were examined to establish the significance and theoretical framework of this study. As for the death education program, which was the experimental tool of this study, the death education program focusing on self-reflection and death and life experience, developed by Lee, Byeong-Chan, was used. The program consisted of a total of 12 sessions, and it was performed once per week and 3 hours per session.
In this study, the above program was performed on the clients of the domestic violence counseling center, which is run by researchers, focusing on self-reflection and death and life experience. The program was carried out by 5 researchers including this researcher (author) who completed the well-dying instructor course at Dongguk University. The education was performed in the form of a group program in the education room of the counseling center; and the self-reflection and experience activities were performed in the classroom of the Graduate School of Buddhist Culture, Dongguk University and in the institute of cultural life and death studies.
For the subjects of this study, 20 victims of domestic violence aged between 30 and 60, who were married and resided in Yangsan, Gyeongsangnam-do, were selected, and they were divided into the experimental group (10 subjects) and the control group (10 subjects). This study was conducted from May 1, 2012 to November 30, 2012.
In conclusion, the investigation of the effects of the death education program focusing on self-reflection and death and life experience on the quality of life, death anxiety, and death awareness of the female victims of domestic violence indicated that the death education program had statistically significant effects on the quality of life, death anxiety, and death awareness of the victims of domestic violence.
The results of this study can be summarized as follows.
First, the investigation of the effect of the death education program on the quality of life indicated that the quality of life of the experimental group was improved compared to that of the control group.
Second, the investigation of the effect of the death education program on the death anxiety indicated that the death anxiety of the experimental group was alleviated compared to that of the control group. In addition, the sub-factors such as the anxiety about the process of death, the loss of existence, and the outcomes after death were generally alleviated.
Third, the investigation of the effect of the death education program on the death awareness indicated that the perception level of the death awareness of the experimental group was positively changed compared to that of the control group.
In this study, the death education program focusing on self-reflection and death and life experience was applied to the victims of domestic violence, and it was shown that the quality of life, death anxiety, and death awareness of the experimental group were statistically significantly improved compared to those of the control group. The death education program was found to be beneficial for the research subjects because it can help find a new meaning of life by integrating the experiences of one’s own life with the present through the reflection, reinterpretation, and re-evaluation of one’s own life.
The pre-test and post-test of the control group and the experimental group for the death education program indicated that the death awareness and death anxiety were improved along with the quality of life. Therefore, the effectiveness of the program could be verified.
The significance of this study is that a death education program was applied to the victims of domestic violence, which had been rarely studied before. The program was found to be effective for the improvement in the general quality of life of the victims of domestic violence. In the future, the education needs to spread based on the results of this study, and it is expected to stabilize the society and improve the quality of life of each individual.