Reliability and Validity of the Turkish Version of Abdel-Khalek’s Death Anxiety Scale among College Students

Abstract

The results of this study indicate that the Turkish version of Abdel-Khalek's Death Anxiety Scale is a reliable and valid instrument. The Turkish version of ASDA revealed better psychometric properties than DAS. This finding may reflect specific cultural and religious attitudes toward death or may result from more comprehensible language use in ASDA.

Death Anxiety, Reliability, Validity, and Factorial Structure of the Farsi Form of the Arabic Scale of Death Anxiety in Iranian Old-Aged Persons

“…Abdel-Khalek obtained four components in an Egyptian sample, labeled “fear of dead people and tombs,” “fear of postmortem events,” “fear of lethal disease,” and “death preoccupation.” The first two factors were almost completely identical in three Arab countries [28]. Sarıçiçek Aydoğan et al obtained five factors in a Turkish college students sample, labeled “fear provoked by visual stimuli related to death,” “fear of physical and psychological pain related to death,” “fear of other situations reminding death,” “fear of postmortem events,” and “fear from the act of dying” [3]. There were some similarities in specific factors between the previous results and the present findings.…”

“…The Arabic Scale of Death Anxiety (ASDA) was developed by Abdel-Khalek, and it is one of the scales for measuring death anxiety [27]. The ASDA has been validated in the Arabic countries of Egypt, Kuwait, and Syria [26–28], the Western countries [29], and the Asian countries of Turkey [3]. It has 20 items, and each item is answered on a five-point intensity scale anchored by no (1) and very much (5) [28].…”

“…Sarıçiçek Aydoğan et al found Cronbach's alpha for Turkish version of the ASDA was 0.86, for each item was from 0.85 (for items (11) and (12)) to 0.90 (for item (20)), the Guttman coefficient was 0.86, and the ASDA was highly associated with the DAS ( r = 0.68). They obtained five factors in the sample of Turkish college students, accounting for 65.6% of the total variance and labeled (F1) fear provoked by visual stimuli related to death; (F2) fear of physical and psychological pain related to death; (F3) fear of other situations reminding of death; (F4) fear of postmortem events; and (F5) fear of the act of dying [3]. …”

“…It was defined and described the different ways in which it is manifested [1–3]. Death anxiety has been conceptualized as fear of death of oneself; fear of death of others; fear of dying of self; and fear of the dying of others [4–7].…”

“…The ASDA has been used in various populations, for example, health professionals [23], drug dependents [24], psychiatric patients, healthy individuals [25], college students [3], and middle-aged individuals [26], to investigate the factors related to death anxiety.…”