Geëngageerde hulpverleners

The concept of dignity is often used in palliative care, and, in particular, as a concept to illustrate what is important to those involved. However, philosophers, ethicists and laypersons cannot agree on what dignity actually is. In this paper, we analyse what caregivers told us about situations in which they thought dignity was at stake. From two focus group meeting of health care professionals concerning the end of life, we learned that dignity could mean different things, but that there were also shared themes. Dignity was at stake where the situation of the patient threatened the deeply felt values of the caregivers. The caregiver engages him or herself to support the dignity of their patient while simultaneously honouring their own sense of dignity. We recommend that care organisations support caregivers’ engagement with dignity by creating time and space for its analysis.

Conflict of interest and financial support: potential conflicts of interest have been reported for this article. Dick Willems received a research grant from the ZonMw Programme Palliative Care. ICMJE forms provided by the authors are available online along with the full text of this article.