ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the relationship between cultural, spiritual, and religious values on a group level, and individual interpretations of these values in one's own life, focusing on end-of-life care issues. The Swedish DöBra cards, an adaption of the original US GoWish cards, provide an example to highlight this relationship. The DöBra cards are designed to be a tool to support conversations about values and preferences for future care at the end-of-life and thereby support “death literacy”. Lessons learned from using the cards in research with older community-dwelling adults, in residential elder care, and among Indigenous Sámi are discussed, as well as those resulting from the cards’ use by the general public without researcher mediation. DöBra card use thus far suggests that it may be a generic tool that can avoid systematic exclusion of particular cultural and religious groups while remaining flexible enough to allow for heterogeneity within groups, by recognizing individual interpretation of important values. The card deck's combination of flexibility and structure may potentially support encounters characterized by cultural humility, a prerequisite for care that is “culturally safe” for people with a variety of backgrounds and values.
