title: Levels of death anxiety: a comparison of American and Lithuanian health and social service personnel.
abstract: Globalization, coupled with increased attention to issues surrounding death, highlights the need to explore cultural influences on the social, personal, and psychological consequences of death. This study compared the responses of 82 American and 119 Lithuanian health and social service personnel on seven subscales of the Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale. Lithuanian participants were more likely to express fear of the dying process and fear of the unknown and were less likely to fear the dead than were Americans. The findings suggest that different historical and environmental experiences with death may influence anxiety about various dimensions of death. Cultural differences in the dimensions of death anxiety among health and social service providers in the two nations suggest the importance of differential training based on specific cultural knowledge to improve the quality of care.
authors.affiliation: School of Social Work, Box 870314, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35406, USA. lroff@sw.ua.edu
authors.forename: Lucinda Lee
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Roff
authors.forename: Cassandra
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Simon
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Klemmack
authors.forename: Ruta
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Butkeviciene
mesh_terms: D001007:Anxiety; D001293:Attitude to Death; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008097:Lithuania; D011594:Psychometrics; D012067:Religion; D012947:Social Work; D014481:United States