Health, Spirituality and Medical Ethics

Background and Objectives: Spirituality is a concept that has found its position in the field of psychology for  years. The purpose of present study is to examine that spirituality and demographic characteristics to what extent can predict death anxiety and to determine how to use spirituality as a frame and supportive source against the difficulties like death anxiety.

Methods: Methods this descriptive study was correlational. Statistical society of the present study was consisted of older adults of retirement homes that from them 245 (121 female and 124male) older adults were recruited via accessible sampling method and responded to Death anxiety Scale (DAS) and Spiritual Assessment Inventory(SAI). Data of research were analyzed by enter regression analysis by using SPSS Software.

Results: The results showed that among the spirituality components, disappointment and instability were predicators of the death anxiety. It means that the increases in these two components lead to the increase in the death anxiety. None of the demographic characteristics in this study could predict the death anxiety.

Conclusion: The result indicates that the spirituality components can significanty predict death anxiety.So it can be concluded with the raising spirituality components among the older adults, their death anxiety rate decreased.