Prevalence of Thanatophobia in General Population of Punjab During Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background. The aim of this research was to check the universality of thanatophobia in generalpopulation of Punjab during COVID-19 pandemic.Method. The study used a survey research design to conduct it, & it was quantitative in nature. In thisresearch design, we asked multiple questions from the population of interest. The current study wascomprised of general population of two areas, namely Lahore and Sargodha, from Punjab (N = 1000) withage range of 20-60 years. Data was collected through a convenient sampling technique. The scale used inthe study was Collet-Lester Fear of Death (Thanatophobia) Scale, proposed by Collett-Lester (1969). Thefinal version was published in 2003 (Lester, 2003).Results. Analysis showed that on Pearson product moment correlation, subscales of Thanatophobia scalesignificantly correlated with each other in general population of Punjab at the (p < .01) level. AnIndependent sample t-test for gender difference showed non-significant differences in the Thanatophobiasubscales. Fear of death according to age categories in the MANOVA analysis of variance indicated thatthere were noticeable differences. According to educational level, there were remarkable variationsfounded on the fear of death in the MANOVA analysis of variance.Conclusion. This article is related to the fear of death. This falls under those concerned social issues thatneed to be identified and addressed on a greater scale in the form of organizing seminars, conferences,workshops etc., especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The fear of death increased at agreater rate during and after COVID-19 pandemic. This study is important for clinical psychologists andcounselors to know about new behaviors and new findings about thanatophobia in public during COVID19 pandemic and to further researches in this area for exploration.Keywords: Thanatophobia, Fear of death, Prevalence, and Pandemic