Assessment of Thanatophobia Among Elderly People Admitted in a Selected Hospital

Introduction: A descriptive study intends to focus on the assessment of the level of Thanatophobia among elderly people admitted in Bolpur Sub divisional Hospital, Birbhum. Objectives: The objectives are to assess the level of Thanatophobia among elderly people admitted in Bolpur Sub divisional Hospital and to determine the association between level of Thanatophobia with selected demographic variables. Material and Methods: Total 385 participants are selected through simple random sampling technique. The conceptual framework is based on Rosen stock’s Health Belief Model. The data are collected through interviewing technique by using semi structured interview schedule for socio-demographic information and Death Anxiety Questionnaire (DAQ) for assessing the level of Thanatophobia. Results: The result reveals that majority of the respondents (370; 96.10%) have low level of Thanatophobia and remaining respondents (15; 3.90%) have high level of Thanatophobia. Chi-square test reveals that there is a significant association between levels of Thanatophobia with gender (x 2 =6.101, p<0.05), types of family (x 2 =6.521, p<0.05) and history of mental disorder (x 2 =17.164, p<0.0001). The study findings revealed that there was no significant relationship between educational qualification, occupation, income per capita, age , religion, place of residence, marital status, current diagnosis, presence of Co-morbidity, no. of days staying in hospital and no. of hospitalization in last one year. Conclusion: The findings of this study can have significant implications for different field of nursing practice, education, administration and research. The study also recommends that further study can be carried out with large samples and different settings specially in the field of psychiatry and end stage diseases.