Care Issues at the End-of-Life in China

Abstract

With changes in population structure, more Chinese live into old or even oldest-old age. Older Chinese, as the elderly in other countries, are more likely to have chronic diseases and die of them. The causes of death and place of death among the elder Chinese have brought up an issue of how to die, or end-of-life care. According to our research, Chinese start to think and talk about death preparation. Living will has become a recent target of promotion among various forces in society, which makes more Chinese understand the concept of living will and gives individuals more choices to decide how they will die. On the part of Chinese society, we have seen a gradual increase in providing hospice care services, a type of end-of-life care. However, comparing with the need of the care and services available, China still has a long way to go to build a better end-of-life care service system for Chinese population.