Death Anxiety Test (DAS)

Abstract

The Templer Death Anxiety Scale (DAS) is a widely recognized self-report instrument designed to quantify the degree of anxiety an individual experiences concerning their own mortality. This psychological construct, often referred to as thanatophobia, represents a fundamental human concern that has been extensively explored by influential theorists such as Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, and Ernest Becker. The DAS is crucial for clinical and academic research, helping to differentiate normal existential concerns from persistent, debilitating anxiety that interferes with daily functioning.

Studies utilizing the DAS have demonstrated that elevated levels of death anxiety are predictive of increased psychological problems and lower ego integrity, particularly among the elderly population perceiving themselves close to death. Findings from systematic reviews confirm that death anxiety is a significant feature across several mental health conditions, and research indicates that it can be effectively reduced using psychological interventions, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), as measured by the DAS.

Keywords

Death anxiety, Thanatophobia, DAS, Templer Scale, psychological measurement, mortality, existential anxiety, self-report instrument, fear of dying.

Authors

Donald I. Templer

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Templer Death Anxiety Scale (DAS) is to provide a reliable and concise measure of the intensity of an individual’s fear and apprehension related specifically to their personal death and the process of dying. It was developed to standardize the assessment of this complex psychological state across different demographic groups and research settings, thereby facilitating comparative studies on mortality concerns.

Beyond basic measurement, the DAS is instrumental in clinical contexts for identifying individuals whose death anxiety is persistent and severe enough to be classified as morbid or abnormal, thus necessitating psychological intervention. The scale’s brevity and clarity make it highly suitable for large-scale epidemiological studies and for tracking therapeutic progress in interventions designed to reduce mortality-related distress.

Construct

The DAS measures the psychological construct of Death Anxiety, which is defined as worry, dread, or apprehension arising from thoughts of one’s own cessation of life. This construct is conceptually distinct from necrophobia, which involves the fear of dead or dying others, rather than the self or the process of one’s own demise.

The conceptual framework underlying death anxiety is multifaceted. Theorists like Robert Lang proposed that death anxiety can stem from three distinct causes: predatory (fear of external threats leading to death), predator (fear of internal processes or decay), and existential (fear related to meaninglessness or the unknown after death). The 15 items of the DAS aim to capture this overall level of distress related to mortality, regardless of the specific theoretical origin of the fear, and have been shown to affect people of differing demographic groups, including men versus women and young versus old.

Validity

The initial validity of the DAS was established by Templer in his seminal 1970 paper, focusing on the scale’s ability to successfully discriminate between groups expected to have differing levels of death-related concern. Subsequent research has supported the scale’s construct validity, demonstrating its appropriate correlation with related psychological variables, such as depression, general anxiety, and other measures of existential dread.

For example, a 2011 investigation into the psychometric properties of the scale by Tavakoli and Ahmadzadeh affirmed its utility in clinical psychology, suggesting that the scale maintains strong psychometric properties necessary for accurate measurement. The consistent findings across various studies underscore the DAS’s ability to accurately reflect the intensity of death-related fear.

Reliability

The reliability of the DAS has been repeatedly assessed across numerous populations and cultural settings. The scale generally demonstrates high internal consistency, typically reporting acceptable Cronbach’s alpha coefficients (often ranging from 0.76 to 0.85), indicating that the 15 items measure a single, coherent underlying construct of death anxiety.

Furthermore, studies investigating the scale’s temporal stability have confirmed adequate test-retest reliability, suggesting that the scores obtained by an individual remain stable over reasonable time periods. This stability is crucial for researchers tracking changes in death anxiety levels over time, such as during therapeutic interventions or longitudinal studies on aging.

Factor Analysis

While the Templer Death Anxiety Scale (DAS) was originally conceived and often scored as a measure of a single, global factor of death anxiety, factor analytic studies have sometimes yielded varying results depending on the population tested. The prevailing view supports a predominantly unifactorial structure, meaning the 15 items primarily load onto one factor representing overall mortality concern.

However, some research has suggested the presence of secondary factors, potentially differentiating between the fear of the physical dying process (pain, sickness) and the fear of the consequences of death (non-existence, separation). Despite these nuanced findings, the total score remains the most common and validated metric derived from the DAS for clinical and research purposes.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report psychological screening instrument

Format: Binary (True/False or Yes/No) response format, consisting of 15 declarative statements. The scale is typically scored by summing affirmative answers to anxiety-indicating items.

Language Available: English (Original), widely translated into numerous languages (e.g., Persian, Spanish, Chinese) for cross-cultural research.

Population Group: General population, clinical populations, specifically used extensively with elderly individuals facing end-of-life concerns or those with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Age Group: Adolescents and Adults (typically 16+).

Population Details: Applicable across differing demographic groups (gender, age, cultural background) although norms may vary. It is used to identify anxiety that is persistent and interferes with everyday functioning.

Test Methodology: 15 items requiring a binary response. Scoring involves assigning 1 point for an anxiety-indicating response and 0 for a non-anxiety response. Items 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 15 are reverse-scored to ensure a high total score reflects high death anxiety.

Keywords

Psychometrics, self-report, mortality salience, clinical assessment, psychological intervention, CBT, fear of dying, ego integrity, morbid anxiety.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source content.

Affiliation Email addresses: Mark Hoelterhoff (Researcher utilizing DAS in thesis): [email protected]

Correspondence Address: Not provided in source content.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Templer Death Anxiety Scale (DAS) was initially published in 1970. Due to its age and widespread academic use, the scale is often utilized freely in non-commercial research settings, although researchers should always confirm current permissions and copyright status with the publisher, The Journal of General Psychology, or Donald I. Templer’s estate.

Test Year: 1970

Reference’s

1. Templer, D. I. (1970). The construction and validation of a death anxiety scale. The Journal of General Psychology, 82, 165-177.
2. Tavakoli, Mohammad Ali & Ahmadzadeh, Behrooz. (2011). Investigation of Validity and Reliability of Templer Death Anxiety Scale. Thought & Behavior in Clinical Psychology, Volume 6, Number 21. Available online as a PDF: http://www.sid.ir/en/VEWSSID/J_pdf/1000520112101.pdf
3. Hoelterhoff, Mark (2010). RESILIENCE AGAINST DEATH ANXIETY IN RELATIONSHIP TO POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER AND PSYCHIATRIC CO-MORBIDITY. PhD thesis submitted to the University of Plymouth. The original PDF containing the instrument can be downloaded here: http://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/pearl_jspui/bitstream/10026.1/306/4/Hoelterhoff%20M%20E_2010.pdf

Items of the death anxiety test (DAS)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. I am very much afraid to die.
2. The thought of death seldom enters my mind.
3. It does not make me nervous when people talk about death.
4. I dream to think about ha‎ving to have an operation.
5. I am not at all afraid to die.
6. I am not particularly afraid of getting cancer.
7. The thought of death never bothers me.
8. I am often distressed by the way time flies so very rapidly.
9. I fear dying a painful death.
10. The subject of life after death troubles me greatly.
11. I am really scared of ha‎ving a heart attack.
12. I often think about how short life really is.
13. I shudder when I hear people talk about a World War III.
14. The sigh of a dead body is horrifying to me.
15. I feel that the future holds nothing for me to fear.