Correlates of death anxiety in elderly persons.

Studied the variables related to death anxiety in the elderly. The population consisted of 122 elderly persons who resided in the community and in institutions. Questionnaires that measured demographics, support systems, health, personality, and death anxiety were administered. Multiple regression analyses with death anxiety as the criterion were performed on five subsamples of the population. The results showed very little consistency in predictors of death anxiety among the subsamples. It was concluded that death anxiety response patterns are a function of the population examined, rather than existing as general characteristics of the elderly, which explains the inconsistency of previous literature on death anxiety in elderly persons.