Final answer:
The grieving process for a patient facing death involves five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These stages may occur in different orders and not all individuals experience all of them.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Grieving Process for a Patient Facing Death
The grieving process for a patient facing death is often described using the five stages of grief proposed by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross (1969): denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These stages may occur in different orders and not all individuals experience all of the stages.
For example, the first stage is denial, where the patient may not want to believe that they are dying. This might be characterized by thoughts like 'I feel fine' or 'This is not really happening to me.' The second stage is anger, where the patient may feel that the loss of life is unfair and unjust. Then, they may move to the stage of bargaining, where they try to negotiate with a higher power to postpone death. The fourth stage is depression, where the situation may start to seem hopeless. Finally, the patient reaches acceptance, where they can face death honestly and regard it as a natural and inevitable part of life.