فهرست مطالب azadeh saffarzadeh

 The thought of one’s own death is a fearful subject that is not easy to deal with. Fear of death can have various psychological effects on a person. Advances have been made in the measurement of death concerns leading to the development and validation of several scales as it varies according to social and cultural conditions.

 This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties, content validity, concurrent validity, and factor structure of a Persian version of the revised Fear of Personal Death Scale (FPDS-R) in an Iranian population.

 This study was conducted on residents of Tehran, Iran, using the online version of the FPDS-R, Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition, and Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale questionnaires. Finally, data analysis was performed using SPSS software (version 21). Moreover, the Pearson correlation coefficient and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used for data analysis.

 Among 313 individuals who completed the study, the fit of the five-factor model in CFA was confirmed using standard indices (root mean square error of approximation = 0.06; chi-square/df = 2.34). Reliability was confirmed by calculating Cronbach’s alpha (> 0.8). Cronbach’s alpha values for the reliability of "deprivation", "loss of self", "forgotten", "other-oriented" and "mystery" were 0.93, 0.88, 0.81, 0.86, and 0.88, respectively. The findings of this study confirmed the five factors model developed by Burris and Bailey (2009) on Iranian sample.

 The Persian version of the FPDS-R in Iranian society has good reliability and validity and can be used for personality research, identification and treatment of clinical disorders, and cross-cultural comparisons in this population.

Fear of death is a global and cultural issue. The aim of the present study was to develop and validate a scale for afterlife fears in the Iranian sample. This study was an exploratory sequential mixed method design. The Qualitative phase included semi-structured interviews with 12 acute cardiac patients. The content of patients answers about afterlife fears rearranged as 14 items for quantitative phase. At the quantitative phase, 313 subjects (230 women and 83 men) were selected from Tehran city and carried out the questionnaires online. For studying construct validity of Afterlife Fear Scale, the responses of normal sample analyzed by exploratory factor analysis method. For assessing the concurrent validity of new Afterlife Fears Scale, its correlation with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II, 1996) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (SES, 1965) were calculated. Data analysis was performed using Pearson correlation coefficient, exploratory factor analysis, principal component extraction method and parallel analysis. Three factors were extracted which were named as "fear of punishment and grave torment", "loneliness and abandonment" and "longing and confidence in God", respectively. The internal consistency method was used to determine the reliability of the scale. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the subscales ranged from .63 to .88, which indicated the appropriate internal consistency of the scale and its components. The Afterlife Fears Scale has good reliability and validity in the Iranian Muslim sample and can be used to identify the underpinning fears of cardiovascular patients and anxiety reduction interventions, as well as cross-cultural comparisons.