DEATH ANXIETY AND CONCEPT OF GOOD DEATH IN THE ELDERLY

Abstract

Introduction: We aimed to determine what elderly individuals think about gooddeath and their level of anxiety about death in order to guide people and familiesworking with elderly individuals.Materials and Method: 420 volunteer elderly participated in the study.Questionnaires were conducted using face to face interview technique. Themeasured values were calculated as arithmetic mean and standard deviation,while values determined by counting as number and percent. The significance ofthe difference between the means of the groups was evaluated using the T-testfor 2-independent samples for two measured values, the One-Way ANOVA test forcomparison of three and more measured variables, and the Tukey’s post-hoc test fordetermining the factor that caused the significance.Results: The importance given to psychosocial and spiritual aspect, personalcontrol and clinical aspect of death were found to be high in elderly individuals,having a near death experience and having children are factors that increase deathanxiety of elderly people. Elderly women have higher death anxiety, and deathanxiety decreases with age. It was found that thinking of death frequently increasesdeath anxiety.Conclusion: As a decent and fair life befitting human dignity is an indispensableright for all people, decisions regarding the last period of life and the desire for agood death are equally indispensable rights for all people and all age groups, andapplications in practice should be shaped according to these needs.