Citation

MacDougall EE, Farreras IG. J. Pain Symptom Manage. 2016; 51(6): 1062-1069.

Affiliation

Hood College, Frederick, Maryland, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2015.12.322

PMID

26899819

Abstract

CONTEXT: Death anxiety has been hypothesized to be a transdiagnostic construct, meaning that the fear of death may increase one's vulnerability to the development or maintenance of a number of psychological disorders. As such, effective and efficient measurement of this construct becomes a priority for hospice and palliative medicine specialists. The Multidimensional Orientation toward Dying and Death Inventory (MODDI-F) is the only factor-analytically constructed multidimensional scale with a conceptual rationale that measures both the fear and acceptance of dying and death.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the factor structure of the MODDI-F with an English-speaking sample, so as to expand the scale's potential for use in hospice and palliative medicine, clinical psychology, and thanatology research.

METHODS: Participants comprised a random sample of 404 adults ranging in age from 20-85, stratified by sex, age, and ethnicity. They completed the 47-item MODDI-F/eng, and were contacted five months later for a test-retest follow-up survey.

RESULTS: Although confirmatory factor analyses did not fit the models previously found for the German- and Chinese-language versions of the MODDI-F, exploratory factor analyses resulted in a five-factor fear dimension and a two-factor acceptance dimension that were empirically and conceptually similar to the German- and Chinese-language versions. Additional psychometric analyses yielded evidence for the internal consistency reliability, five-month test-retest reliability, and construct validity of the seven-factor scores of the English-language MODDI-F.

CONCLUSION: The results from this psychometric investigation of the English-language version of the MODDI-F are promising and warrant further investigation with clinical populations in hospice and palliative care settings.

Language: en