Death anxiety and death obsession in Spanish students

This study examined the dimensional structure of Templer's Death Anxiety Scale and Abdel-Khalek's Death Obsession Scale. The responses of 289 Spanish students to the Spanish forms of both scales were evaluated by means of a principal components analysis with varimax rotation. Three significant factors were identified: Death Obsession, Cognitive-Affective, and Death Anxiety. The distribution of the factor loadings for the items of both scales on Factors 1 and 3 supported the discriminant validity of the constructs specific to each of the scales, while Factor 2 showed a common component in both scales characterized by cognitive and affective aspects in relation to the idea of death.     

Correlations of attitudes toward physician-assisted suicide, death depression, death obsession, and trait anxiety

In a sample of 112 Kuwaiti college students, approval of physician-assisted suicide was not significantly correlated with scores on trait anxiety, death depression, or death obsession.     

Death anxiety in Japan and Australia

This study compared death anxiety ratings as measured by the Templer Death Anxiety Scale (Templer, 1970) in 121 Japanese and 139 Australian subjects. Japanese subjects had significantly higher death anxiety scores than their Australian counterparts. Australian women scored significantly higher than Australian men, but no sex differences were found in the Japanese sample. A slight but statistically significant positive correlation was found between age and death anxiety scores. This study contradicted other research that indicated that Eastern cultural attitudes mitigated anxiety about death. These findings are discussed in relation to the complex relationship between culture and death anxiety as well as in relation to problems inherent in our current conception of death anxiety.     

Death anxiety in Egyptian samples

The present research was an attempt to determine the Egyptian death anxiety level and correlates, and to compare such data with those of Americans. The sample consisted of 673 Egyptian males and 770 females in 13 subgroups. The Arabic version of the Templer's Death Anxiety Scale (DAS) was administered. Testing bilingual Ss, test-retest reliability and factorial validity of the DAS in Egyptian Ss has been adequately demonstrated. However, split-half reliability was not high. The mean DAS scores for Egyptians were a little higher than those of Americans. Egyptian females had higher DAS scores than males. The DAS correlates significantly with the Manifest Anxiety Scale and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. However, DAS correlates with Trait Anxiety more than with State Anxiety. There is a significant correlation between the DAS and the Neuroticism subscale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Death anxiety and general anxiety constitute two distinct factors.     

Mixed anxiety and depression

We review evidence from community, primary care, and psychiatric samples to determine whether there are a group of patients who have mixed symptoms of anxiety and depression that are below diagnostic thresholds for either group of disorders. A review of the data strongly suggests that such a group of patients exists and that, despite lacking sufficient symptoms to meet diagnostic thresholds from the revised 3rd edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 1987), they often have significant impairment in social and vocational functioning. Because many of these patients also suffer from medically unexplained somatic symptoms, they may be more likely to frequently use nonpsychiatric medical care. Longitudinal studies suggest that persons with mixed anxiety-depression symptoms may represent a population who are at increased risk for more severe mood and anxiety disorders.     

Identity and death anxiety

Sixty-three male Caucasian undergraduates were involved in a study examining possible relationships between death anxiety and Erikson's concept of ego identity. Participants were administered Marcia's Ego Identity Status Interview and Templar's Death Anxiety Scale (DAS) in counterbalanced order. A one-way analysis of variance revealed a significant main effect of ego identity status on DAS scores. One identity status, moratorium, was associated with significantly higher DAS scores than the other three statuses. Diffusion, foreclosure, and achievement statuses did not significantly differ on DAS scores.     

Death without God: religious struggle, death concerns, and depression in the terminally ill

ABSTRACT— Religious worldviews often provide comfort near the end of life, but they can cause distress if life circumstances are perceived as evidence of God's disfavor. This study, the first to test terror management theory (TMT) with terminally ill participants, examined the hypothesis that concerns about death mediate the relationship between religious struggle (and religious comfort) and depression in the terminally ill. Ninety-eight patients with end-stage congestive heart failure (CHF) completed measures of religious comfort, religious struggle, belief in an afterlife, concerns about death, and depression. In separate hierarchical linear regression models that controlled for degree of belief in an afterlife, death concerns fully mediated the relationships between religious struggle and depression and between religious comfort and depression. These findings suggest that religious struggle is a breakdown in the terror management system that leaves the individual vulnerable to the terror of death, and that properly functioning religious worldviews offer comfort by buffering the individual against death concerns.     

Attitude towards euthanasia in relation to death anxiety among a sample of 343 nurses in India

Scores on Attitude towards Euthanasia were correlated with scores on Death Anxiety among 343 female nurses in India using Templer's Death Anxiety Scale and the authors' 24-item attitude scale. No significant correlation was found between the two sets of scores (r = -.09) or a nonlinear score on relation. Age of nurses was not significantly related to Attitude towards Euthanasia (r = .07) or Death Anxiety (r = .11). As measured, death anxiety has no bearing on attitude about euthanasia.     

Death anxiety in Spain and five Arab countries

The present study compared death anxiety among volunteer undergraduates from Spain and five Arab countries, i.e., Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Lebanon, and Syria. The Templer Death Anxiety Scale was used in its Spanish and Arabic forms, respectively. The Mean for the Spanish sample was lower than that of their Arabic counterparts in the five countries, whether the subjects were men or women.     

Differentiating anxiety and depression in older adults with generalized anxiety disorder

To examine affect and cognition in differentiating anxiety and depression, 83 older participants with generalized anxiety disorder completed the Cognitive Checklist (CCL) and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). A 3-factor solution was found for the PANAS: positive affect (PA), anxiety and anger (Negative Affect 1 [NA-1]), and guilt and shame (Negative Affect 2 [NA-2]). A 2-factor structure was noted for the CCL. Correlations with anxiety and depression measures suggested that the CCL Depression (CCL-D) subscale showed stronger correlations with depression, whereas the CCL Anxiety subscale did not uniquely correlate with anxiety. The NA-1 subscale correlated positively with measures of depression and anxiety, whereas the PA subscale showed negative correlations. Hierarchical regression suggested that the CCL-D subscale was a significant predictor of self-reported depression.     

Death anxiety, dissent, and competence

A total of 64 male undergraduates were administered a multistage interview which was structured to assess (a) their level of overtly expressed death anxiety, (b) covert (GSR) arousal to death stimuli (c) self-perceived competence, and (d) agreement with or dissent from life threatening national policies. The analyses that followed were concerned with examining the relationships among these variables. In previous studies of this kind it had been typically found that (1) self-perceived competence and magnitude of expressed death concern are inversely related and (2) overt expressions of death concern and covert physiological arousal to death cues are inversely related. Psychodynamic formulations centering on the ego-defensive nature of inhibited expressions of death anxiety have been cited to explain these past data. The current investigation proposed that the magnitude of expressed death concern would bear an inverse relationship to both felt competence and covert death arousal only when the level of overt concern was not contingent upon the individual's attitudes concerning the imminence of real life threatening circumstances in the environment. The rationale behind these predictions inheres in the notion that the neurotic components of strongly expressed death anxiety derive from its lack of anchoring in "real" external threats. Conversely, the expression of low death fear can only be regarded as "defensive" when real threats are perceived and acknowledged. The obtained results strongly support this rationale and the discussion centers on the impact of social conditions on psychodynamic processes.