THE EFFECT OF SPECIFIED DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES UPON DEATH ANXIETY AMONG NURSES.
Contributors: Mississippi State University.
Published: 1988
Number of pages: 71
Subjects: Education, Educational Psychology.; Psychology, General.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: A review of the literature revealed that little is known about death anxiety among nurses. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between death anxiety among nurses and nine demographic factors including age, shift, work site, average age of the nurses' patients, belief in afterlife, number and recency of significant other deaths, recency of death and dying workshop attendance, and gender.

Fifty nurses employed at an urban hospital composed a pilot study group who were asked to complete a 5-point Likert conversion of the Templer Death Anxiety Scale (the Templer-Moore Death Anxiety Scale) twice in 2 weeks. Test-retest reliability was established at.86 for the scale. Interitem test-retest reliability was.76.

Approximately 850 nurses employed at three large hospitals in north, central, and south Mississippi were asked to complete a questionnaire which consisted of the Templer-Moore Death Anxiety Scale and 10 demographic questions. Forty-six percent responded.

A stepwise regression analysis showed that factors associated with death anxiety among nurses (p $<$.001) in descending order were: age, belief in life after death, and length of time since last death workshop participation. Age and belief in afterlife were negatively correlated with death anxiety, while length of time since last death workshop attendance was positively correlated with death anxiety.

Analysis of variance procedures conducted on the demographic subgroups, revealed the following: (1) Nurses older than 38 years reported significantly lower death anxiety than did their younger colleagues (p $<$.01). (2) Nurses who had no opinion as to belief in an afterlife had more death anxiety than did nurses expressing a strong belief therein (p $<$.01). (3) The number of significant other losses within the past 5 years was a significant factor (p $<$.01) related to nurses' death anxiety scores; however, post hoc procedures failed to discriminate among the demographic subgroups. (4) Recency of attendance at a death workshop significantly affected Templer-Moore Death Anxiety Scale scores obtained by nurses (p $<$.05). However, once again, the differences among demographic subgroups were not significant.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-02, Section: A, page: 0395.

Thesis (PH.D.)--MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY, 1988.

School code: 0132.