Little Fear of Dying Among Churchgoing Seniors, Study Finds
"We know we're going to leave here in one of two ways - either in a casket or an ambulance," says one retirement home resident. This stark realization can inspire fear or confidence among senior citizens who live in these facilities. "It is generally assumed that fear of death is a preoccupation for many living in retirement communities," says David B. Larson, M.D., president of the National Institute for Healthcare Research (NIHR). "However, in a recent study among retirement community residents, it was found that seniors who attend church frequently were much less afraid of dying." The study Dr. Larson was referring to was conducted by researchers from the University of Portland and California State University.

The researchers conducted personal interviews with over 650 elderly residents of six West Coast retirement communities to determine whether living in an environment surrounded by people who are vulnerable to illness and sudden death heightened anxiety about death. These elderly residents were asked to respond to a questionnaire concerning their feelings about death. In order to determine the impact of religious and social support, the seniors were also asked to rate themselves on variables dealing with religious and social activities. For instance, religious support was measured by frequency of church attendance, importance of religion, and frequency of private religious activities (e.g., praying, meditating, Bible reading, etc.). Social support was measured by frequency of group activities taking place both inside and outside the community, frequency of seeing friends, and their frequency of being with their children.

The study also examined the possibility that higher average age within a community would contribute to higher levels of death anxiety. This was not the case, as a community-by-community comparison found little relationship between older age and higher death anxiety. In other words, residents living in younger-aged communities were just as likely to be anxious about death as residents living in older-aged communities.

However, one community stood out from all the rest because its residents had significantly lower average death anxiety scores than the rest of the retirement communities. Particularly unique to this retirement community was that its residents were all retired religious workers (i.e., ministers, missionaries, YMCA and YWCA directors, and religious educators). In addition, these residents were distinct from the residents in the five other evaluated communities in the degree of their religious participation. Indeed, approximately 91 percent of the residents in this community reported attending religious services at least once a week, which was a sizable 43 percentage points higher than the next highest community in terms of religious participation (approximately 48 percent). Psychiatrist Dr. David Larson expressed his opinion of the findings, "I am not at all surprised that a group of religiously involved people was the least anxious about dying. Religious faith has been shown to lower stress, enhance coping and help a person face death."

Interestingly, the subjective measure "importance of religion" as well as more personal forms of religious practice, such as prayer, meditation, and Bible reading, were not significantly associated with lower (or higher) death anxiety scores. Neither were the non-religious forms of social activity related to lower or higher death anxiety. Dr. Larson concluded that the "frequency of attending religious services is clearly an important predictor of death anxiety."

Reference: Duff R.W. and Hong, L.K. (1995). Age density, religiosity, and death anxiety in retirement communities. Review of Religious Research 37(1):19-32.