Death anxiety level of selected elderly people in Bangkok, Thailand: A basis for a pastoral counseling program

• Main Author: Likhittam, Wannee
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 1982
• Subjects: Older people—Pastoral counseling of—Thailand—Bangkok; Anxiety in old age; Fear of death; Counseling
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/1292; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8130&context=etd_masteral
• Institution: De La Salle University

This descriptive determines the death anxiety level of selected elderly people in Bangkok, Thailand as a basis for a pastoral counseling program for the aged. Corollary to the main problem the following specific questions were looked into in the study. The subjects of this study were 86 selected elderly in Bangkok, Thailand. Templer's (1970) Death Anxiety Scale (DAS) was employed as a questionnaire checklist in the interviews conducted by the researcher with each respondent. The t-test was used to find significant differences between the death anxiety level of the following groups: 1) elderly aged 60-70 and 71 and above 2) elderly males and females 3) Buddhist elderly and Catholic elderly. The analysis of Variance was used to find significant differences in the death anxiety level of the following groups: 1) Institutionalized elderly, elderly living in their own home, and elderly living in the children's home 2) Married, never married, widow(er) and divorced elderly 3) Elderly with a formal education, with primary, secondary, and college education. The results of the study revealed that: 1) The elderly showed a low death anxiety level when grouped according to age, sex, religion, residence, marital status, and educational attainment. 2) There is no significant difference in death anxiety level of the elderly when grouped according to those variables except when grouped according to sex. There is a significant difference between the death anxiety level of the male and the female subjects at 0.05 level of significance. The female elderly showed a higher death anxiety than the male. 3) Although the findings of the study showed that there is a low death anxiety level, majority of the elderly expressed the desire to die because of the feeling of boredom and uselessness. The proposed recommendations are: 1) Pastoral counseling activities and informational services related to the needs of older adults should be emphasized by the government, social agencies and pastoral counselors. 2) Group work should be encouraged in which older adults can be helpful to one another in guidance and counseling group. 3) More research should be done to better identify incentives for older adults to participate in groups so that more from that age group may be attracted to take part. 4) Older adult peer facilitators can make a contribution to their age cohorts in the area of positive mental health and should be given the opportunity to do so. Stipends should be given to the facilitators as an incentive to participate and as an indication of the value of their service. 5) It is recommended to the administrators of institutions for the elderly that they support the pastoral counseling program as presented in this study. 6) It is also recommended that this study be replicated using different groups of people as respondents and using a general anxiety scale.