Collet-Lester Fear of Death Scale Validation and Gender-Based Comparison of Death Anxiety, Suicide Ideation and Life Satisfaction in University Students

Abstract

The current research was purposed to establish the validity of collet-lester fear of death scale and to compare death anxiety, suicide ideation and satisfaction with life in male and female students of Ahwaz Islamic Azad University. The research samples consisted of validity evaluation phase sample (with 200 subjects: 100 males and 100 females) and hypothesis testing sample (with 400 subjects: 200 males and 200 females). All the subjects were selected via simple and stratified random sampling procedures, respectively among enrolled students of Ahwaz I.A.U for academic year 2007-08. To collect data, Collet-Lester Fear of Death Scale (CL- FODS), Templer Death Anxiety Scale (DAS; to evaluate concurrent validity of CL-FODS), Beck Scale of Suicide Ideation (BSSI) and Pavot and Diener Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) were implemented. The CL-FODS reliability coefficients were obtained by Cronbach Coefficient Alpha and halving methods (respectively: 0/89, 0/68). It has also been found that CL-FODS, significantly associated with Templer Death Anxiety Scale (at p-value ≤0/0001) with correlation coefficient of 0/568 as concurrent validity. The results showed that quite acceptable high validity and reliability were obtained for CL-FODS. The outcome by multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) also revealed that there were significant differences between male and female death anxiety (and its subscale: your own death, your own dying, the death of others and the dying of others) and satisfaction with life. Both groups did not differ significantly in suicide ideation.