Death Anxiety and Its Predictors Among Older Adults

Introduction: death anxiety can negatively affect recovery among older patients.objective: study aimed to assess death anxiety and its predictors among older adults duringand after hospitalization.materials and methods: this crosssectional study was conducted in 2017 on 241hospitalized patients aged ge;60 years. the study subjects were consecutively recruited froma hospital in kashan city, iran. the required data were collected in the first and the thirdhospitalization days (t1 and t2) and the seventh day after hospital discharge (t3) usingthe minimental state examination, a death anxiety contributing factors questionnaire,the templer death anxiety scale, the life satisfaction indexz scale, and the spiritualwellbeing scale. for the statistical evaluation, repeated measures analysis of variance(anova), the stepwise multiple linear regression, and the rank regression analyses wereused.results: the mean ±sd score of death anxiety at t1 -t3 was 6.74 ±3.81, 7.38 ±3.64, and6.18 ±3.60, respectively. death anxiety at t2 was significantly greater than t1 and t3(p=0.0001). approximately 17.7% of the total variance of death anxiety at t1 was explainedby the number of hospitalizations, satisfaction with hospital staff rsquo;s performance, and spiritualwellbeing. the significant predictors of death anxiety at t2 were marital status, satisfactionwith hospital staff rsquo;s performance, children rsquo;s gender, satisfaction with bed arrangement, age,and the number of hospitalizations, which explained 32.1% of the total variance. moreover,15.4% of the variance at t3 was explained by satisfaction with bed arrangement and receivingeducation at hospital discharge.conclusion: older adults suffer from moderate death anxiety during and after theirhospitalization due to various factors. managing death anxiety contributing factors isnecessary to alleviate it among older adults