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Underlying factors of death anxiety construct and their correlates among Chinese community adults
Wu, A. M. S.; Tang, S. K.
2005-11-01
Size of Audience30
Type of SpeakerPresenter at the 1st Asia-Pacific Conference on Trauma Psychology
Abstract

Death is often regarded as the most threatening event to one’s life, and death.anxiety is adversely associated with ones’ psychological well-being (Lonetto & Templer,1986; Wu, Tang, & Kwok, 2002). Though death is the end-stage of one’s life (at least, the “present” life), the relationship between age and death anxiety has not been confirmed. The ignorance of the multidimensionality of death anxiety construct might be the reason for the equivocal findings of previous studies (Neimeyer & Van Brunt, 1995; Thorson & Powell, 1994). Among Chinese undergraduates, it has been found that death anxiety consists of at least two dimensions: death and dying anxiety (DDA), as well as afterdeath anxiety (ADA) (Wu, Tang & Yan, 2003). In the present study, this twodimensional model was further validated by confirmatory factor analysis among a sample of Chinese adults recruited in Hong Kong community. The authors also investigated how these two dimensions were associated with both demographic and psychosocial factors, such as age, fear of medical neglect, self-efficacy to sign the organ donor card, and behavioral commitment of organ donation. Two hundred and ninety Chinese adults aged over 25 years old (Range = 25-87, Mean = 46.56 years, SD = 16.04) were recruited by convenient sampling in public parks, community centers, as well as personal contacts and referrals. The refuse rate, including incomplete questionnaires, was about 26%. Among 290 participants, about 37% of them were male (N=107) and two-thirds of them were female (N=183). All respondents were Cantonese-speaking. They were asked to fill out a questionnaire after signing the consent form for participation. For those who were illiterate, trained interviewers read the questionnaire items to them and recorded their verbal responses. Assurances of confidentiality were also given. Participation was voluntary and no monetary compensation was given to them. This sample was believed to be representative of the general public in Hong Kong. Structural equation modeling (SEM) procedure by maximum likelihood method using EQS 6.1 was run to evaluate the significance of each suggested factor path and the fitness of the two-dimension model. All paths were statistically significant, but one item was deleted because its variance accounted was lower than 15%. After allowing some errors to be correlated, the goodness-of-fit of the proposed model was acceptable, with χ2 (205) = 489.95, p <. 00, NFI = .84, NNFI = .88, CFI and IFI = .90, as well as RMSEA = .08. Each factor contained 11 items and two factors were highly correlated (r=.59). The internal consistencies of DDA and ADA were .88 and .92 respectively. It was found that both factors were negatively associated with self-efficacy to sign the donor card (r=-.35 and -.43) and behavioral commitment of organ donation (-.26 and -.37)(p<.00). However, only ADA was significantly correlated with fear of medical neglect (r=.22, p<.00), while only DDA associated with gender (t=-3.22) and age (r=-.20)(p<.00). Women reported higher level of death and dying anxiety than men. Moreover, death and dying anxiety increased with age.

KeywordDeath Anxiety Chinese
Conference Date2005-11
Conference PlaceHong Kong, China
Language英語English
The Source to ArticlePB_Publication
PUB ID759
Document TypePresentation
CollectionDEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
AffiliationUniversity of Macau, Macao, China
First Author AffilicationUniversity of Macau
Recommended Citation
GB/T 7714
Wu, A. M. S.,Tang, S. K.. Underlying factors of death anxiety construct and their correlates among Chinese community adults, 2005-11.
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