The Relationship Of Death Anxiety, Death Attitude And Post-traumatic Stress Response

Death is an avoidance life issue for everyone. Its inevitability and unpredictability of the people have an instinctive fear of death. And it’s the fundamental source is the death anxiety, which maybe a basis of psychological problems. The present study starts from the death anxiety to explore the impact of the risk factors of Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and use the self-produced measurements to explore the relationship among death anxiety, death attitude and Posttraumatic stress reaction (PTSR).Results:(1) It was showed that the structure of death anxiety included 18 items, four components, and the result of CFA showed that the measurement model fit the data well. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the CDAnS and each subscales are from.66 to.88. The CFA shows that the structure of the CDAnS is rational:x2/df=1.675, GFI=932, NFI=.900, CFI=.957, RMSEA=.045. The correlation between the CDAnS and BDI-II, Trait Anxiety, Happiness and IES-R were significantly, which showed that CDAnS had good criterion validity. (2) It was showed that the structure of death attitude included 12 items,3 components, and the result of CFA showed that the measurement model fit the data well. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the CDAtS and each subscales are between.59 and.67. The CFA shows that the structure of the CDAtS is rational: x2/df=1.458, P=.018, GFI=.964, CFI=.960, RMSEA=.037. The correlation between the CDAtS and BDI-11, Trait Anxiety, Happiness and IES-R were significantly, which showed that CDAtS had good criterion validity. (3) For un-traumatized person, death anxiety plays a mediating role in the relationship of the attitude of death and post-events stress reactions. (4) Only the trauma salience significantly increases PTSR, along with the rise of the negative emotions and the decline of the positive emotions, but the change of PTSD has nothing to do with the emotional changes. And the scores of death anxiety after operation significantly lower than before. (5) Trauma salience does not simply inclusive the death salience.For the researches in the field of death, this study provides new tools. The Chinese Death Anxiety Scale and the Chinese Death Attitude Scale is a reliable and valid measure in Chinese culture, which can be used in future researches. And this is the first time to use trauma salience to simulate the impact of trauma on individuals in a laboratory. Furthermore, the present study explore the risk factors of PTSD from the perspective of death anxiety, which provides a new approach to psychological diagnosis of the definition of trauma, a new perspective of clinical intervention work, and a new theoretical basis for existential psychotherapy.