The Relationships of Death Anxiety and Death Depression to Religion and Civilian War-Related Experiences in Iranians

Abstract

Of eleven hundred seventy-six Iranian college students, those who were more exposed to war-related traumatic events and those who were less religious had higher death anxiety and death depression. The specific variables that contributed the most variance to both death anxiety and death depression were weaker religious belief, female gender, injury to friends or relatives, death of friends or relatives, not believing in life after death, and maintaining that the most important aspect of religion is life after death. Theoretical and clinical implications were discussed. The greater death anxiety of female Iranians adds to the inference that death anxiety is greater in females, which seems to be a worldwide phenomena.The present study had two primary purposes. One was to determine the relationship of death anxiety and death depression of Iranian Moslems to war-related event exposure during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. The study was carried out both by correlations of war-related events to the two death attitude measures and by comparison of death attitude of Iranian college students who lived in the area of greatest military activity (region of University of Shiraz) with college students from other regions. It was hypothesized that experiencing war related events would be positively associated with death anxiety and death depression. The 201 0 1999, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.

Levels of Death Anxiety: A Comparison of American and Lithuanian Health and Social Service Personnel

“…This may be because Lithuanians families have experienced more death and fear of horrendous death due to political repression than Americans. This explanation is consistent with the finding that Iranian college students who had experienced greater war-related trauma had higher death anxiety than those with less exposure (Roshdieh, Templer, Cannon, & Canfield, 1998). Lithuanians' greater fear of the dying process may also be related to their greater familiarity with some of the specific external causes of death mentioned in the subscale.…”

How Death Imitates Life: Cultural Influences on Conceptions of Death and Dying

“…They found that Hindus (who had the greatest belief in life after death) also tested lowest in death anxiety, followed by the Muslims, while the Christians showed the highest death anxiety. A few years later, Roshdieh, Templer, Cannon, and Canfield (1999) studied death anxiety and death depression among 1,176 Iranian Muslims who had war-related exposure during the Iran-Iraq war. They found that those who scored higher on death anxiety were those who also had weaker religious beliefs, did not believe in life after death, and did not assert that the notion of the existence of life after death was the most important aspect of religion.…”

Forgiveness, revenge, and adherence to Islam as moderators for psychological wellbeing and depression among survivors of the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait

“…Pargament's religious coping theory (1990; 1996; 1997) suggests that religion helps people cope with adverse events by offering an explanation and helping people to make meaning of the events. In support of Pargament's model, research with Muslim/Middle Eastern participants --including participants who were exposed to war trauma --found that religiosity was related to lower levels of anxiety and depression, suggesting that Islam may act as a buffer to negative life events (Roshdieh, Templer, Cannon, & Canfield, 1999;Suhail & Akram, 2002;Baroun, 2006).…”

“…Some research using Muslim participant samples has also indicated that high scores on religious commitment, as it relates to both the level of belief and practice, tend to mitigate death distress (e.g., anxiety, depression, and obsession regarding death and one's mortality; Suhail & Akram, 2002). Similarly, Roshdieh, Templer, Cannon, and Canfield (1999) studied 1,717 Iranian Muslim college students exposed to war-related events during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. Those who were more exposed to war-related traumatic events and those who were less religious, had higher death anxiety and death depression.…”