Death obsession in Egyptian samples: differences among people with anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, addictions, and normals.
Author: Abdel Khalek AM.
Source:
Death studies, 26(5), 413-424.
Seven groups (n = 765) of Egyptian normals (non-clinical), anxiety disorder
patients, and patients suffering from schizophrenia (males and females), and
addicts (males only) were selected. They were generally matched as groups
according to age, occupation, and education. All participants responded,
individually, to the Death Obsession Scale (DOS). Cronbach's alpha reliability
statistics for the 7 groups ranged between .83 and .94, denoting from good to
high internal consistency of the DOS. The most singular finding is that the
female and male anxiety disorder patients' means were greatly and significantly
higher than the means of the other five groups.The other salient differences were
that female schizophrenics had a significantly higher mean than both male normals
and male schizophrenics. Male schizophrenics and male normals had, respectively,
the lowest mean DOS scores.The male addicts had a mean DOS score that was less
than both male and female anxiety disorder groups. Females have higher mean DOS
scores than their male counterparts in the normal, anxiety disorder patients, and
patients suffering from schizophrenia groups