Making sense of the psychological suffering: The moderating role of sense of coherence on the relationship between death anxiety and post-traumatic growth of Filipino adults

• Main Author: Salvamante, Debbie Anne Largosa
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2024
• Subjects: Posttraumatic growth > Philippines; Anxiety; Fear of death; Sense of coherence; Clinical Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdm_psych/75; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etdm_psych/article/1075/viewcontent/2024_Salvamante_Making_sense_of_the_psychological_suffering_Full_text.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

Recent research started focusing on the positive characteristics of adverse life experiences aside from their negative consequences. Literature highlights that people may encounter beneficial changes after distressing circumstances, known as Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG). People’s Death Anxiety (DA) was identified as one of the predictors of PTG, although there are inconsistent findings and limited available studies explaining its relationship. Previous literature suggested the importance of investigating the psychological resource that would mitigate the influence of DA, which is identified as Sense of Coherence (SOC) in this study. The study sought to explore the moderating role of SOC in the relationship between DA and PTG among female young adults who experienced distressing circumstances. A correlational and cross-sectional research design was employed in this research. Data was collected from young adult Filipino females (N=249) who participated in the study. Findings show that SOC has no moderating effect between DA and PTG. On the other hand, data suggests that adults’ DA positively predicts PTG. The adults’ DA is found to be negatively associated with SOC. Moreover, adults’ SOC positively predicts PTG. The study presents practical implications in promoting SOC of adult individuals during stressful situations in the clinical, academic, and organizational settings. This highlights adult Filipinos’ active role in coping despite fear towards death, leading to PTG. Keywords: post-traumatic growth, death anxiety, sense of coherence, Filipinos, adults