Death Threat, Concern, Anxiety, Fear and Acceptance in Death-Involved and ‘At-Risk’ Groups

Abstract

The Death Threat Index and four scales focussed on death concern, anxiety, fear and acceptance were applied to three groups: a death-involved group comprised of funeral directors, mortuary attendants and nurses; an ‘at-risk’ group comprised of parachutists and hang-gliders; and a control group whose contact with death was no more than a past and not recent bereavement. Consideration of the data focussed on the performance of the Index and the four scales in the Australian context, and on the effects of ‘proximity’ to death and dying on scores of the five measures. The Index was found to be problematic, though three of the four scales proved to have satisfactory reliability and validity. There were no significant differences on any measure across the three groups (though trends were in three cases as predicted), and only minor variations on the measures for ad hoc groups defined in terms of choices of options for questions concerning religious belief and belief in an afterlife; while self-report of death orientation was appropriately related to each measure.