'Food for life and palliation (FLiP)' : a qualitative study for understanding and empowering dignity and identity for terminally ill patients in Asia

• Main Authors: Patinadan, Paul Victor, Tan-Ho, Geraldine, Choo, Ping Ying, Low, Casuarine Xinyi, Ho, Andy Hau Yan
• Other Authors: School of Social Sciences
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Social sciences::Psychology
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/152933
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

With 'eating' posited as Singapore's domestic pastime, food experiences for Singaporeans constitute national, social, ethnic and personal identities. However, though they form significant parts of Singaporean existence across the lifespan, studies and observations about food experiences for individuals at the end of life remain noticeably absent. Extant literature continues to focus on nutritional practice during illness and the active dying process, forgoing the rich lived experiences of food in the lives of patients and their families. The current work sought to qualitatively extricate through a constructivist phenomenological approach, the 'food voices' of Singaporean palliative care patients and their families. It also simultaneously aimed to assess the role of food in bolstering their subjective feelings of dignity and identity, while also considering resultant clinical implications.