Monitoring and Tasks of the Policies for the End of Life with Dignity

Abstract

The end of life with dignity, or well-dying, is often referred to as a “good death,” “dignified death,” or “well-ending,” and is defined as a death that allows for self-determination at the end of life without placing a burden on family members. The monitoring in this study are limited to the 9 policy tasks presented in the 4th basic plans for low fertility and aging society and the annual implementation schedules, which are the policy tasks first appeared in the 4th basic plans. Policy monitoring was attempted by applying a monitoring framework with appropriateness of policy design, policy operation, and target groups, but faced difficulties in analysis as many policy projects were still in the stage of fact-finding, research contract, direction setting, and program development. This study can be said to consist of three parts. By examining the well-dying policies in general, the first part was set of the basic direction of monitoring. Reviews were made on the concept and process of policy monitoring, basic perspectives, position in the growth cycle specialized for well-dying policies, and policy project model setting. And a monitoring framework was presented based on the appropriateness of policy design, of policy operation, and of target groups. In the second part, monitoring of the well-dying policies was carried out, and the results were presented over three chapters. It was divided into three categories: hospice/palliative care/life-sustaining treatment decision support policy, the end-of-life care support policy, and the end-of-life self-determination strengthening support policy. In the third part, the policy of well-dying in a broad sense was examined. From a life-cycle perspective, the well-dying policies in the 4th basic plans are too narrow because it deals only with the end-of-life period, which should be expanded and looked into in scope to cover both before and after in order to truly implement well-dying.