Marie Curie supports Dying Matters Awareness Week

Marie Curie is supporting the second annual Dying Matters Awareness Week,
16-22 May.

Dying Matters is a coalition of around 14,000 organisations and individuals across the UK which aims to encourage people to start conversations about dying and death and to discuss the type of end of life care they want.

According to new research commissioned by the Dying Matters, death remains a taboo subject in Britain. Although the majority of people think that talking about death is less of a taboo than it was 20 years ago, two-thirds of all people agree that people in Britain are uncomfortable discussing dying and death.

The research finds few people have discussed with their partner the type of funeral they want (33 per cent), whether they have a will (33 per cent) where they would like to die (16 per cent) or the type of care and support they would want at the end of their lives (18 per cent). 

Women are a lot more likely than men to have had discussions with their parents, but both men and women are more likely to have spoken with their partner than their parents - just one in four people have spoken to their parents about whether they have made a will and only 11 per cent have discussed with them where they would like to die.

The research, which was carried out for the Dying Matters Coalition by Comres, reveals that although most people are scared of dying, quality of life is viewed as more important than how long we live for:

Just 15 per cent of people would like to live forever and only 9 per cent would like to live to over 100. The most common age at which people would like to die is aged 81-90 (27 per cent). Younger people are more likely than older people to want to live forever.

More people are scared of dying in pain (83 per cent) than of being told they are dying (67 per cent), dying alone (62 per cent) or dying in hospital (59 per cent). Despite the economic downturn more people are scared of dying than of going bankrupt (41 per cent) or losing their job (38 per cent). Women are more scared of dying than men.

The older people get the more likely they are to think that quality of life is more important than the age they live to, with 81 per cent of people aged 65 or over saying this, compared with 58 per cent of people aged 18-24.

The research also found the majority of people have used euphemisms as a way of avoiding using the words “death” and “dying” when talking about the death of someone they knew – the most common euphemisms were “passed away” (57 per cent), “deceased” (23 per cent) and “kicked the bucket” (20 per cent). 17 per cent had used the term “popped their clogs” and 10 per cent used “brown bread”.

One in five people don’t think it’s appropriate to use euphemisms when talking about the death of someone they know.

For more information, visit the Dying Matters website.

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