Abstract
Death and dying are processes that every human being encounters in his or her lifetime and perhaps the greatest loss an individual can suffer. In this sense, fear of death is regarded as a risk and maintaining factor of psychopathology. As such, effective and efficient measurement of this construct becomes a priority. While the Revised Collett-Lester Fear Of Death Scale (CL-FODS) is a brief, commonly used assessment, such a tool is lacking in French clinical practice. The present study aimed to adapt the revised CL-FODS in a general French sample and to determine its psychometric properties, namely its factorial structure, concurrent and convergent validity, and internal consistency. A sample of 590 participants responded to the French revised CL-FODS, as well as three instruments assessing death anxiety (DAS), neuroticism and spirituality (FACIT-Sp), to examine the internal consistency, validity and factorial structure of the scale. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a four-factor model: (1) One’s Own Death,” (2) The Death of Others, (3) The Dying of Others, and (4) One’s Own Dying. Five items did not load on these four factors, suggesting that the revised CL-FODS might require further psychometric refinement. The revised CL-FODS showed good internal consistency. The scale was found to be significantly associated with the Death Anxiety Scale. When the appropriate psychometric characteristics are taken into account, this scale can be used in clinical and research settings to assess death concerns in French society.
Highlights
In a context in which the relationship with death has seen a profound transformation in our Western society, the question of death has long been repressed, and removed from the repertoire of life
Studies using the Collett-Lester Fear Of Death Scale (CL-FODS) have investigated its association with a broad range of variables such as gender, age, religion, spirituality and personality Concerning gender, studies have yielded mixed results (Lester, 2015; Thiemann et al, 2015; Mohammadpour et al, 2018) while results indicate that older adults score lower than younger adults (Neimeyer et al, 2004)
The average age was 41.6 (SD = 16.42) ranging from 18 to 89 years old, and there were 455 (77.1%) women and 135 (22.9%) men. 398 (67.5%) of the total sample were in a relationship and the majority of them had an education level of a Bachelor of Arts (BA) / Bachelor of Science (BSC) degree (27.6%; N = 163)
Summary
In a context in which the relationship with death has seen a profound transformation in our Western society, the question of death has long been repressed, and removed from the repertoire of life. The Collett–Lester Fear of Death Scale (CL-FODS, Collett and Lester, 1969) is probably one of the most popular multidimensional instruments used for research and clinical practice (Templer, 1970; Lo et al, 2011; Carlozzi et al, 2016). This scale differentiates two crucial aspects involved in death: (1) the fear of death versus the fear of dying and (2) the fear of one’s own death versus the fear of the death of others. Neuroticism and spiritual well-being was used in the present study to test the concurrent validity of the CL-FODS
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