This article presents the results of a qualitative study aiming to consider the relationship between ambiguous loss and anticipatory mourning amongst relatives of missing people in Italy. Eight people participated in the research, narrating their experiences of losing a beloved person (one found alive, three found dead, and four still missing). Findings suggest the presence of a particular form of ambiguous loss, characterised by traits typical of both prolonged and traumatic grief. These findings describe how families are faced with an emotional vortex related to a never-ending wait, and how the mourning is solved only when the missing person is found dead or alive. The discovery of a corpse is traumatic but it allows mourners to fully recognise their grief. When a person is found, it changes the relationship in a positive way. When neither of these events happen, mourners have two different kinds of reactions: they experience either a prolonged grief or a drive to solve their suffering by helping other people (post-traumatic growth). In this study, it is highlighted how a community can be useful or detrimental in this process, and the importance of psychological and social support to prevent significant clinical outcomes is stressed.

Unclear communication of inauspicious prognoses may disorientate both patients and their relatives, drastically jeopardizing the planning of palliative care. This paper considers the issue of truth-telling in the communicative problems of nurses and students of nursing with terminally ill patients. The fundamental objective is the analysis of the difficulties related to the lack of truth-telling and how it might impact their professional and personal lives. A qualitative study was realized, involving 47 participants, both nurses (25) and nursing students (22), working in palliative care units or in associations of volunteers for the assistance of oncological patients. The exploration was focused on the way they relate to patients who are not aware of their real health conditions and their consequences. Particular attention was paid to their opinions concerning what could be done in order to manage such problematic situations in the near future.

The censorship of death-related issues is widespread in contemporary Western culture because the boundary between death and life is substantially managed in medical areas. In the context of Italian educational initiatives, to remove this limitation, 215 high school students in Southern Italy were educated on death through conventional and informal lessons. The students answered a questionnaire with open questions to survey their emotional and reflective experiences. Their answers were qualitatively, thematically analysed to explore how the representation of death can follow a death education course, and if this experience can be managed without harmful effects. The students’ answers narrated how the course reduced their anxiety linked to these themes, on the one hand improving communication between peers by making it more authentic and empathic and, on the other, providing alternative perspectives on life. Indeed, the project offered an opportunity to discuss something strongly heartfelt but rarely faced, and the survey confirmed that the research objectives were fully achieved.

(1) Background: The Italian Constitutional Court’s decision n. 99/2019 abolished the distinction between physical and psychological health care in the Italian prison system. However, this and other changes to the penitentiary system present challenges to prison staff, which may vary based on their roles and backgrounds; (2) Purpose: To create a process of dialogue and collaboration that include different points of view, needs, and proposals regarding mental health in prisons, this study collects and integrates the perspectives of 91 prison staff who work in various capacities in eight prisons in northeast Italy. (3) Methods: Each participant was involved in either a focus group or a semi-structured interview, and thematic analysis was used to process the resulting transcripts; (3) Results: Through this process, 10 themes were derived that highlight the difficulties of working with prisoners with psychiatric disorders or psychological distress, including lack of human and economic resources, lack of positive communication between prisoners and society and a sense of professional incompetency; (4) Conclusions: Based on these themes, the need for increased points of view, dialogue, and collaboration between prison professionals and between prison and society is discussed, and the current feasibility of treating psychiatric disorders in prison is considered.

This study was designed as an action research aimed to help students to elaborate their feelings of traumatic grief, due to a car accident and a suicide of two of their classmates, in an Italian high school. A death education project was realized in order to prevent the Werther effect. The intervention was based on psychodramatic techniques and meditation with Tibetan bells to encourage reflection on the suffering of traumatic loss, the sense of life, and their future. A total of 89 students from four classes (46 in the experimental group: two classes, 43 in the control groups: two classes) participated in the study, among which 82 (45 in the experimental group, 37 in the control group) completed the pre- and post-test survey. The intervention consisted of eight 2-h meetings, during which the themes of death and loss were dealt with through theoretical discussions, dramatization, and meditation. Two other classes which participated in the assessment as a control group did not attend the activities. The following instruments were used: Death Attitude Profile-Revised, which measures individual attitudes toward death; Psychological Well-being Scale, which measures a person’s psychological well-being; Resilience Scale for Adolescents, which measures the construct of resilience in adolescents; Self-Transcendence Scale, which measures self-transcendence; and Testoni Death Representation Scale, which measures the ontological representations of death. The results demonstrated that in the experimental group, there was a reduction in the fear of death and its avoidance, and that the students normalized the representation of death as something natural, thus improving their well-being. It is consequently possible to say that well-being is not simply the absence of suffering and worries, but rather, is rooted in the possibility of thinking of creative solutions to the trauma.

The study presents the results of qualitative research carried out within a death education project dedicated to advance treatment directives (ATDs) in which it was proposed to participants to empathize with people who had received a diagnosis of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). The study involved 104 people who discussed and reflected on issues related to the knowledge of having to die, palliative care and ATDs, investigating what choices they would have made if they had received such a diagnosis. Finally, they were asked to write a paper describing their impressions and hypothetical choices. Qualitative analysis has elucidated among fundamental themes. Four thematic areas emerged from the data analysis: (1) ATDs and the family; (2) the importance of reducing pain and suffering; (3) emotions and considerations regarding death, illness and spirituality; and (4) opinions on the DeEd course. It has emerged that some people are unfamiliar with palliative care or the right to self-determination and that addressing these issues helps manage the thought of the future with less terror. The experience of death education has therefore proven to be very positive in dealing with complex and often censored issues, allowing thinking about death in a less distressing way.