{"entity":{"id":"dignity-therapy","kind":"technology","name":"Dignity therapy","aka":[],"tldr":"Dignity therapy is a short, one-to-one talking therapy for people near the end of life and their families. In a large trial it did not lower distress more than usual care, but patients said it helped them, their sense of dignity and their families.","summary":"Dignity therapy is an individualised, short-term psychotherapy developed for patients, and their families, living with life-threatening or life-limiting illness. In the randomised trial by Chochinov and colleagues (Lancet Oncology 2011; NCT00133965), 441 patients with a life expectancy of six months or less receiving palliative care in Canada, the USA and Australia were assigned to dignity therapy, client-centred care or standard palliative care. Distress levels before and after the study did not differ significantly between the three groups. In the secondary end-of-life experience survey, patients reported that dignity therapy was more likely than the other two to have been helpful, to improve quality of life, to increase their sense of dignity, to change how their family saw and appreciated them, and to be helpful to their family.","status":"established","asOf":"2026-11-04","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity_therapy","links":[{"label":"Chochinov et al., dignity therapy randomised controlled trial (Lancet Oncol 2011)","url":"https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(11)70153-X"}],"tags":["supportive","psychosocial"],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":["psycho-oncology","palliative-care"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":["spiritual-care-in-cancer"],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"principle":"An individualised, short-term psychotherapy for patients with life-threatening or life-limiting illness, and their families, aimed at mitigating distress and bolstering the experience of the end of life.","strengths":[],"limitations":[]},"route":"/technologies/dignity-therapy/","neighbours":{"technology":[{"id":"palliative-care","kind":"technology","name":"Early integrated palliative care","route":"/technologies/palliative-care/"},{"id":"psycho-oncology","kind":"technology","name":"Psycho-oncology and distress screening","route":"/technologies/psycho-oncology/"}],"term":[{"id":"spiritual-care-in-cancer","kind":"term","name":"Spiritual care in cancer","route":"/terms/spiritual-care-in-cancer/"}]}}