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Accumulated empirical evidence suggests that death anxiety is strongly associated with multiple mental health conditions. Despite this, few studies have experimentally explored whether manipulating reminders of death could influence the symptoms of mental illnesses. The present, preregistered study used a mortality salience design to assess whether death reminders could increase anxious behavior (i.e., time spent scanning one's body, identification with images consistent with poorer health, and intention to visit a medical practitioner) among individuals with relevant disorders. A total of 128 treatment-seeking participants with either a body scanning disorder (i.e., panic disorder, illness anxiety, or somatic symptom disorder) or a nonscanning disorder (i.e., depression) were randomly allocated to either a mortality salience or control condition. Following this, participants were presented with a series of images of various body parts, which purportedly predicted particular life outcomes, and asked to check their own body and select the image that most closely matched their own. As hypothesized, the results revealed that mortality salience produced an overall increase in all three anxiety-related behaviors. Further, mortality salience selectively increased scanning duration and identification with images indicating poorer health for individuals with a scanning disorder. This effect only occurred when participants were told the body part predicted a health-relevant outcome. In contrast, mortality salience increased intention to visit a medical specialist regardless of one's disorder. The findings support theoretical predictions that death anxiety may have a causal role in multiple mental disorders. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Death anxiety has been proposed as a transdiagnostic construct, underlying numerous mental disorders. Although it has been argued that treatments, which reduce death anxiety, are needed, research investigating the impact of interventions on death fears has produced mixed results. As such, the current meta-analysis aimed to examine the effect of psychosocial interventions on death anxiety. Overall, results from 15 randomised controlled trials suggested that psychosocial treatments produced significant reductions in death anxiety, with a small to medium effect size (g = .45). Intervention type (death education vs. therapy) did not significantly moderate the effect of intervention on death anxiety (g = -.47). However, therapy type was a significant moderator of treatment efficacy (g = -1.39). Cognitive Behaviour Therapy was found to be particularly efficacious, producing significant reductions in death anxiety relative to control (g = 1.7), whereas other therapies did not (g = .20). The number of treatment sessions and baseline death anxiety significantly moderated intervention efficacy, whereas the duration of the intervention, training of the interventionist, and clinical nature of the sample did not. Given the small number and generally low quality of the included studies, future research using more rigorous methodology, as well as clinical samples, is needed., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: We tested the hypothesis that neuroticism moderates the association between APOE (apolipoprotein E) genotype and two major outcomes, cognitive function and Alzheimer disease. We also explored whether other personality dimensions (extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) moderate the associations of APOE with these outcomes., Design: Primary analyses of existing randomized clinical trial data., Sample: Six-hundred two older adults (mean age of 78 years at baseline)., Measurements: APOE genotype, the NEO-Five Factor Inventory, the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive: measured every 6 months for 6.5 years) and relevant covariates., Results: Fully adjusted multivariate analyses showed that the association between the presence of APOE [Latin Small Letter Open E]-4 allele(s) and both outcomes was evident among individuals with high levels of neuroticism and extraversion but not among persons with low levels of these traits., Conclusions: Phenotypic personality dimensions, primarily neuroticism and extraversion, moderate the relationship between APOE [Latin Small Letter Open E]-4 genotype and cognitive outcomes among older adults. Future research is needed to elucidate the physiological processes involved in these particular phenotype-genotype interactions.