Death Anxiety in Physicians: Defensive Style, Medical Specialty, and Exposure to Death

Abstract

This study explores certain aspects of death anxiety in the physician. The participants of the study were seventy-seven male physicians actively practicing their profession in the New York metropolitan area, Twenty-nine were internists, twenty-eight were psychiatrists, and twenty were surgeons. The results confirmed an inverse relationship between the use of repression and overt report of death anxiety for the physicians tested. Frequency of exposure to death seemed to have no effect on defensive style. The physicians most frequently exposed to death (internists) did not employ the most repression, as expected. Other significant differences between the three tested medical specialties were noted. Furthermore, a significant relationship was found between age, experience, and death anxiety. It was the younger and less experienced physician who. displayed the greatest death anxiety. It was also the younger physician who was most frequently confronted with death.