Skala lęku i fascynacji śmiercią

Abstract

In this study, a novel questionnaire assessing human attitudes to death is introduced. Invented questionnaire comprises two scales: death anxiety and death fascination. Death anxiety refers to general fear of death, especially related to oneself. Death fascination contains not only purely cognitive interest in death and dying, but also acceptance of committing suicide and declared death desire. Validation was performed on 725 subjects – mostly citizens of Gdańsk, Gdynia and Sopot, in majority undergraduate and secondary school students of both sexes. This included testing internal consistency, temporal stability, and external validity. Final version of Death Anxiety and Fascination Scale contains 23 items. „Anxiety” scale consists of 9 items, „Fascination” – 14. Reliability of „Anxiety” scale equals 0,80, and of „Fascination” 0,90 (Cronbach’s alpha). The results show high validity and temporal stability of presented method.