Attribution of control and the fear of death among first-year medical students.

Abstract

Explored the relationship between attribution of control and the fear of death in a medical student population. Ss were 50 first-year students at the LSU School of Medicine at New Orleans, with a mean age of 24.7 years. Instruments included the Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale and the Templer Death Anxiety Scale. Ss were divided into two groups (internal or external) based upon scores on the Locus of Control Scale, and a one-way analysis of variance was computed between the groups. The dependent variable was level of death anxiety. The results revealed that the internally oriented group obtained a significantly lower mean score on the Death Anxiety Scale when compared to the externally oriented group (F = 2.28, p less than .02). Two additional ANOVAs that used sex and age as the independent variables revealed no significant differences on the death anxiety measure, thus strengthening the apparent relationship between locus of control and fear of death.