title: Thanatophobia in medical students: approach to death and dying patients attitude scale (ADDPAS) for undergraduate years in medicine.
abstract: In recent decades growing efforts in Western countries in integrating end-of-life care issues into undergraduate medical education have been conspicuous. However, studies in this field are limited in Turkey. We aimed, therefore, as a first step, to develop an attitude scale in order to obtain objective data regarding medical students' approaches to death and dying patients. After applying the scale on medical students and performing exploratory factor analysis, it was found out to be composed of a two-dimensional structure. Then the internal construct validity of these dimensions was subjected to Rasch analysis and the reliability of them was tested by internal consistency and person separation index. As a result of overall analyses, we suggest a new scale which is capable of making valid and reliable measurements.
authors.affiliation: Department of History of Medicine and Ethics, Ankara University School of Medicine, 06100, Sihhiye, Ankara, Turkey. volkankavas@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Mustafa Volkan
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Kavas
authors.forename: Derya
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Oztuna
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001293:Attitude to Death; D003479:Curriculum; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine / Q000193:education*; D008297:Male; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*; D013727:Terminal Care / Q000523:psychology*; D014421:Turkey; D055815:Young Adult