Fear of death and strategies for coping with patient death among medical trainees.
This paper describes a longitudinal study of fear of death following up fourth-year medical students in their junior house officer year. It confirms previous findings that the fear of death is and remains multidimensional, with fear of being dead having the lowest score on both occasions and fear of someone close dying being consistently the highest. Fear of death reduces on each dimension over time, though not significantly. An analysis of descriptions of strategies used by students to cope with patient death showed that passive acceptance through rationalizing was the most commonly used, especially by men, followed by supporting the patient emotionally or clinically, which was used especially by women. The highest fear and stress scores were associated with avoidance, dismissal and seeking advice, while the lowest were shown by those who rationalized the event. The paper goes on to describe the relationship of fear of death to various individual differences including empathy, gender, parental death, parental anxiety, and stress.
Firth-Cozens
J
J
Department of Psychology, University of Leeds.
Field
D
D
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D001293:Attitude to Death; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008505:Medical Staff, Hospital / Q000523:psychology; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*