{"title":"The Predictive Role of Religious Beliefs, Psychosocial Illness, and Aging on Death Anxiety Among Christians and Muslims","authors":"Waqar Husain, Bushra Parveen, Haitham Jahrami, Achraf Ammar, Khaled Trabelsi","doi":"10.1007/s11089-024-01159-2","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Anxiety about death is a complex phenomenon, shaped by social, cultural, and religious factors. Death anxiety has been exhaustively studied; however, few studies have explored this relationship among followers of various religions in a singular cultural context. The current study provides an opportunity to address this gap with Christians and Muslims of Pakistan, not only by assessing the role of religious beliefs in these religious groups but also by ascertaining their death anxiety in relation to psychosocial illness and fear of aging. A convenience sample of 202 Muslims and 222 Christians (<i>N</i> = 424) completed four scales: the Psychoreligious Beliefs Scale, Sukoon Psychosocial Illness Scale, Brief Fear of Aging Scale, and Death Anxiety Scale. Our findings revealed that levels of death anxiety were significantly higher in Muslims than in Christians. Death anxiety was predicted by psychoreligious beliefs and fear of aging among both Christians and Muslims but not by psychological illness. We conclude that religious orientation and fear of aging contribute to increasing death anxiety. The paper discusses the role of imams and pastors in addressing issues pertaining to death and death anxiety with their Muslim and Christian followers.</p>","PeriodicalId":19961,"journal":{"name":"Pastoral Psychology","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Pastoral Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-024-01159-2","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Anxiety about death is a complex phenomenon, shaped by social, cultural, and religious factors. Death anxiety has been exhaustively studied; however, few studies have explored this relationship among followers of various religions in a singular cultural context. The current study provides an opportunity to address this gap with Christians and Muslims of Pakistan, not only by assessing the role of religious beliefs in these religious groups but also by ascertaining their death anxiety in relation to psychosocial illness and fear of aging. A convenience sample of 202 Muslims and 222 Christians (N = 424) completed four scales: the Psychoreligious Beliefs Scale, Sukoon Psychosocial Illness Scale, Brief Fear of Aging Scale, and Death Anxiety Scale. Our findings revealed that levels of death anxiety were significantly higher in Muslims than in Christians. Death anxiety was predicted by psychoreligious beliefs and fear of aging among both Christians and Muslims but not by psychological illness. We conclude that religious orientation and fear of aging contribute to increasing death anxiety. The paper discusses the role of imams and pastors in addressing issues pertaining to death and death anxiety with their Muslim and Christian followers.
期刊介绍：
Pastoral Psychology, founded in 1950, is one of the most well-established and respected journals in the field of psychology and religion/spirituality. Pastoral Psychology is an international forum that publishes scholarly, peer-reviewed original articles that address varied aspects of religion and spirituality from physical, human science, and interfaith perspectives.
Historically, the word “pastoral” has referred to the care of individuals, families, and communities. Today, we additionally consider “pastoral” in terms of lived experience as it relates to embodiment, the social-political, economic, spiritual, and environmental dimensions of life.
All theoretical perspectives are welcome, as Pastoral Psychology regularly publishes articles from a variety of schools of thought, including, but not limited to, psychoanalytic and other dynamic psychologies, cognitive psychologies, experimental and empirical psychologies, humanistic psychology, transpersonal psychology, and cultural psychology. Insights from existential perspectives, intersectional theories, philosophical and theological theories, gender and queer studies, sociology, anthropology, public mental health, and cultural and empirical studies are welcome. Theoretical contributions that have direct or indirect relevance for practice, broadly construed, are especially desirable, as our intended audience includes not only academics and scholars in religion and science, but also religious and spiritual leaders, as well as caregivers, chaplains, social workers, counselors/therapists, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, and persons interested in matters of religion/spirituality and psychology.
Pastoral Psychology welcomes scholarship and reflection from all religious and spiritual traditions. In addition to scholarly research papers, the journal welcomes thoughtful essays on a wide range of issues and various genres of writing, including book reviews and film reviews. The community of scholars represented in its pages has demonstrated that the life challenges the journal seeks to address are universally shared, yet also reflect individual social, cultural, and religious locations. The journal, therefore, welcomes submissions from scholars from around the world.
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