Depresyon Tanısı Almış Hastalarda Ölüm Kaygısının Araştırılması.

Objectives: The general aim of this study was to examine the relationship between depression levels and death anxiety levels among patients diagnosed with depressive disorder. Method: The research sample consists of 135 (100 women 74.1% and 35 men 25.9%) patients who are diagnosed with depressive disorder at one of the psychiatry out-patient clinics of a state hospital in Istanbul. Individuals who volunteered to attend the research are between ages 18 and 60 years. The patients are given Beck Depression inventory (BDI), Templer's Death Anxiety Scale (DAS) and a questionnaire for demographics. Results: Correlation analysis pointed out that there was a significant relation between the depression points and death anxiety points in the depressive patients group (r=.366, p<01). Furthermore, research sample is divided into 3 groups as high, moderate and low levels of depression. Then all three depression groups are compared for death anxiety levels. It was found that, there were significant relation between the level of depression and death anxiety (F=10.765, p<.001). This finding suggests that the high and moderate level depression groups had higher death anxiety than low level depression group. Conclusion: The hypothesis of this study was that when depression levels get higher the death anxiety level would be higher. Consistent with the study hypothesis, results demonstrated that, depression levels effects death anxiety level. Consequently, the results of this study highlight the relationship between depression level death anxiety. In addition, it was speculated that depressive people think more about death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]