title: The death distress construct and scale.
abstract: The purpose of this research was to construct a short scale to assess the death distress construct, that is, death anxiety, death depression, and death obsession as derivatives from the already existing scales. A sample of 630 volunteer undergraduates responded to scales of death anxiety, death depression, and death obsession. A Pearson correlation matrix was computed using the 51 individual items of the three scales. A forced three-factor principal components analysis with orthogonal varimax rotation was carried out. Eight items with factor loading > 0.5 on each scale was determined. The eight items with highest factor loadings on Factor I were with "Death obsession," whereas the Factors II and III were labeled: "Death anxiety," and "Death depression." Their alpha reliabilities ranged from 0.83 to 0.93, indicating high internal consistency. One week test retest reliability ranged between 0.76 and 0.91, indicating temporal stability. A single high-loaded factor of death distress was disclosed, demonstrating the discriminant validity of the death distress construct and scale. Women obtained a significantly higher mean scores on all three factors. It was concluded that the aforementioned three factors were sufficiently independent to justify their use in assessing partially distinct sub-constructs as sub-components of the generic high-order factor of death distress, with empirical and clinical implications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, College of Social Sciences, Kuwait University, Kaifan, Kuwait. abdel_khalek@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Ahmed M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Abdel-Khalek
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D001293:Attitude to Death; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009770:Obsessive Behavior / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D055815:Young Adult