Scale of Death Anxiety (SDA): Development and Validation

Abstract

This study developed and validated a new measure to assess the death anxiety (i.e., Scale of Death Anxiety, SDA) on an individual’s somatic, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions from a symptomatic perspective in Chinese youth samples. Following a systematic process, a four-factor structure of the SDA was identified through principle components analysis and confirmatory factor analysis that revealed four aspects of death anxiety: Dysphoria, Death Intrusion, Fear of Death, and Avoidance of Death. The results of this study indicate that the SDA has a clear factor structure and good psychometric properties. The SDA supports death anxiety as a multidimensional construct, and the foundational role of fear of death in the generation of death anxiety. This scale is valuable and beneficial to research on death anxiety. This study makes a significant contribution to the literature because the SDA is the first assessment of death anxiety to include the constructs of dysphoria and somatic symptoms. And the potential clinical practice of the SDA was discussed.

Social support serves emotion regulation function in death anxiety among people living with HIV/AIDS

“…There are recent developments indicating that death anxiety is a multidimensional construct (Cai et al, 2017; Chopik, 2017; Tomás-Sábado et al, 2005), but existing studies on social support and emotion regulation in relation to death anxiety have scarcely considered this multidimensional approach to death anxiety. If death anxiety is a multidimensional construct, this may imply that there may be differential antecedents and consequences of each dimension.…”

“…Death anxiety is an anxiety which is related to the anticipation, and awareness, of dying, death, and nonexistence (Barrett, 2013). It typically includes emotional, cognitive, somatic, and motivational components which may be dependent on a person’s stage of development (Lehto & Stein, 2009) and sociocultural life experiences (Cai et al, 2017). The construct of death anxiety has four independent dimensions which were labelled as death acceptance, externally generated death anxiety (EGDA), death finality, and thoughts about death (Tomás-Sábado et al, 2005).…”

From Perceived Supervisor Social Power to Employee Commitment: Definition and Scale Development

“…PSSP's definition was first presented to them. Next, they were asked to rate on as scale from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree), to what extent they judged that the content of each item was representative of PSSP definition (Cai et al, 2017). It was decided prior to this expert review that an item with a mean score lower than 3/5 would be removed.…”

A study on the anxiety level of people related to the COVID-19 pandemic death cases: A case study of Jabodetabek region

“…The measuring instrument constructed by Cai, Tang, Wu, and Li [15] consists of four dimensions: dysphoria, death intrusion, fear of death, and avoidance of death. Dysphoria generally describes the somatic condition of a person experiencing anxiety, which is defined as a condition where someone feels isolated, anxious, and restless, which in turn will cause physical reactions arising in the form of feelings of being tired and emotional distress when thinking of death.…”

“…The questionnaire used in this study consist of a) scale of death anxiety [15]; b) socioeconomic vulnerability; and c) level of cognition. All three of them were adapted to fit the situation and condition during the COVID-19 pandemic/PSBB period.…”