Background & Objective: Death anxiety comprises emotional, cognitive, physical, and motivational components and is related to the level of development of individuals, their religious beliefs, source of social control and support, as well as their sociocultural experiences and basic life choices. Although some people cope well with the issue of death, for others, death anxiety becomes a crippling fear that leads to inefficient coping strategies and endangers their mental health. According to the results of some studies, spirituality and social support have an effective role in coping with stressful life events and reducing anxiety. Although the relationship between death anxiety and spirituality and social support has been studied separately among the elderly or people with incurable diseases, the relationship between these variables has not been studied in young populations without specific diseases. So, this study aimed to evaluate the correlation between death anxiety and mental well–being, spiritual well–being, and social support in students of the Faculty of Architecture of Islamic Azad University.
Methods: This analytical descriptive research was a correlational study. The study's statistical population consisted of all students of the Faculty of Architecture, Islamic Azad University, Robat Karim Branch, Tehran, Iran. Of whom, 272 students were selected using Krejcie and Morgan's table (1970) and voluntary sampling method. The inclusion criteria were as follows: male and female students studying in the second semester of 2014–15 in the Faculty and willingness to participate in the research. The exclusion criterion was the incomplete completion or non–return of the questionnaire. The required data were collected using the Death Anxiety Scale (Templer,1970), World Health Organization Well–Being Index (WHO–5) (World Health Organization, 1998), Spiritual Well–Being Scale (Peplau & Ellison, 1982), and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet et al., 1988). In this research, descriptive statistics indicators such as mean and standard deviation were used to describe the variables. Also, the relationship between the study variables was evaluated through the Pearson correlation coefficient and the prediction of death anxiety through multiple linear regression analysis in SPSS version 20 software. A significance level of 0.05 was considered for all tests.
Results: According to the results, there was a negative and significant relationship between death anxiety and mental health (r=–0.676, p≤0.001), spiritual health (r=–0.673, p≤0.001), and social support (r=–0.542, p≤0.001). Among the predictor variables, mental health (β=–0.457, p≤0.001), spiritual health (β=–0.311, p≤0.001), and social support (β=–0.261, p≤0.001) could significantly predict death anxiety score. Mental health, spiritual health, and social support could explain 64% of death anxiety scores.
Conclusion: Based on the research findings, mental health, spiritual health, and social support are significantly associated with death anxiety and can predict it.