Coping with death anxiety--trying to make sense of it all?

Facing uncertainty and possible death: the Christian patients' experience

This paper presents the hospital experience of a group of coronary artery bypass graft surgery patients. A description of the qualitative methodology is given. The participants' experience was identified as facing uncertainty and possible death. Excerpts from interviews are given. The participants coped with the situation by praying or having others pray on their behalf. Their uncertainty and possible death was affected by the conditions of: available support; environment; credible authority; information; belief; and their psychophysiological status at the time.

Seeking comfort through prayer

The aim of the research was to discover the experience and meaning of prayer of patients in hospital when undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Ethnographic-type post discharge interviews with 13 participants formed the major data source. Using the grounded theory method, the basic social psychological process was labeled seeking comfort through prayer. This was the process of engaging in prayer with God. The participants believed that God listened to their prayers and answered them when they were seeking comfort. It was this reassurance that gave them the strength to face uncertainty and possible death, and also gave them comfort in their psychophysiological condition at the time. Seeking comfort had three stages (maintaining or re-establishing a relationship with God; making peace with God; and asking God to be with them during the hospitalisation). This last stage involved five levels of prayer (acquiescence, instinctive prayer, survival, confiding and honouring).

Death Concern and Religious Beliefs among Gays and Bisexuals of Variable Proximity to Aids

In view of the high mortality rates associated with a diagnosis of AIDS, we investigated gay and bisexual (G/B) men's levels of death fear and threat and their relation to religiosity. Participants were grouped into three categories: forty-three who were seropositive for HIV (the HIV+ group), sixty-eight who were seronegative but who were involved as volunteers or professionals in AIDS hospices, wards or organizations (the AIDS-involved group), and fifty-five who had no direct involvement in AIDS other than their risk group membership (the uninvolved group). We found that 1) the HIV+ group reported greater fear of premature death, 2) the AIDS involved group demonstrated significantly lower levels of death concern than the other two groups, and 3) both the involved and HIV+ groups reported higher levels of religious belief than the uninvolved group of G/B men. Finally, intrinsic religious orientation was negatively related to both overall death threat as measured by the Threat Index and fears specific to the possibility of an afterlife, but not to other components of death concern as measured by the Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale.