title: Relationship Between Subjectively Evaluated Health and Fear of Death Among Elderly in Three Cultural Contexts.
abstract: It is often argued that declining health in elderly people makes death more salient and threatening. However, we argue that health, optimism, and social support interact to predict fear of death in samples from Cameroon, the Czech Republic, and Germany. Low health was associated with enhanced fear of death for participants who received only little social support. As the measure of optimism did not comply with psychometric requirements in the Cameroonian sample, the three-way interaction was tested only in the Czech and German samples. It was found that the two-way interaction was further qualified by optimism in that low health was associated with enhanced fear of death for participants with little social support unless they reported pronounced optimism. Thus, internal and external resources, respectively, can serve to buffer the effect of declining health on the fear of death in the elderly.
authors.affiliation: 1 University of Trier, Trier, Germany.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hofer
authors.affiliation: 1 University of Trier, Trier, Germany.
authors.forename: Holger
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Busch
authors.affiliation: 2 The Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Iva Poláčková
authors.initials: IP
authors.lastname: Šolcová
authors.affiliation: 3 Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Tavel
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000208:ethnology*; D001293:Attitude to Death / Q000208:ethnology*; D002163:Cameroon / Q000208:ethnology; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D018153:Czech Republic / Q000208:ethnology; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany / Q000208:ethnology; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D000067656:Optimism / Q000523:psychology*; D012944:Social Support
keywords: culture; fear of death; old age; optimism; social support; subjective health