Exploring the death literacy of the island of Ireland

Death literacy is the knowledge and skills that individuals need for them to access, understand and make confident decisions regarding end-of-life care and death options. The demands of the ageing population, lack of end-of-life care knowledge, presence of wrongful beliefs about palliative care and stigmas that exist towards death and dying has led death literacy to become a rising topic of interest on the island of Ireland. This rising interest is seen in key palliative and end-of-life care organisations across the island such as Marie Curie and the Irish Hospice Foundation who have recommended death literacy to be increased across the island. In order to know what the death literacy of the island of Ireland looks like, it must be measured. Researchers in Australia have created a tool that can measure death literacy, the Death Literacy Index (DLI). However, it is not known whether the Death Literacy Index is appropriate for use on the island of Ireland.