Stavovi o vlastitoj smrtnosti učenika Medicinske škole Dubrovnik

Abstract

Introduction: Mortality is an essential determinant of human life, which is why as long as people live and know how to live, it cannot be erased from consciousness. Given the awareness of one's own mortality, man is faced with the problem of how to reconcile the desire to live with the knowledge of the limitations of his life. Objective: The objective is to investigate and determine the level of awareness of mortality as well as possible differences concerning different sociodemographic characteristics of high school students from Dubrovnik. Subjects and methods: The research was conducted on a sample of 237 students of the Medical School in Dubrovnik. The level of awareness of one's own mortality was measured by a questionnaire called the Death Attitudes Questionnaire. The Mann-Whitney U Test was used to determine differences in mortality awareness between students of different sexes, while the Kruskal-Walis H test was used to determine differences concerning age, grade, and occupation. The SPSS statistical program was used for statistical analysis. Results: Adolescent respondents expressed a wide range of attitudes about mortality in this study. Gender (p>0.05) is not a significant determinant of attitudes about mortality of respondents included in this study, while age, grade and occupation (p<0.05) proved to be significant determinants of differences in respondents' responses. The most common problems in understanding the deaths of the respondents were expressed by the statements "How will I die?", "What is the meaning of life?", "Will it be painful?", "I'm worried that you are just gone!" that's how it all ends. " Conclusion: Indicators of an individual's relationship to different segments of mortality thinking were analyzed. In general, the distributed results showed that respondents of different sociodemographic characteristics significantly showed openness to more positive thoughts and a higher level of awareness regarding mortality.