The influence of a lecture course in loss and grief on medical students: an empirical study of attitude formation.

In this study the results of a questionnaire administered to medical students attending a lecture course on loss and grief are analysed. The focus of the inquiry was to determine whether attitudes towards death, dying and loss could be influenced by confrontation with factual information on bereavement. The results showed that the original idealized attitudes underwent a reality correction due to increased factual knowledge of bereavement processes. The defensive attitudes of students who experienced death in their family during the course are discussed. Intensity and temporality of one's involvement with death appear to be a determining factor in the formation of attitudes towards death. Typical male and female attitudes are also presented. It is concluded that the institutionalization of education in bereavement processes should receive priority in medical programmes and that the classical lecture deserves its place therein.