Development of a Death Anxiety Scale for Children

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a valid, reliable, and efficient instrument that could be used to explore children's responses to death and dying. A rating scale consisting of neutral and anxiety producing words was constructed; scale construction consisted of a number of steps. Test/retest reliability of the scale was assessed as .87 for death words and .79 for neutral words using Cronbach's alpha. Validity was established by reading the words to children between the ages of five and twelve and recording galvanic skin response, response time, and pulse rate. Children responded with greater skin resistance to death words, than to the neural words (t(154) = −1.93, p < .06) leading to the conclusion that the Death Anxiety Scale for Children (DASC) was a valid, reliable, and efficient measure of children's death anxiety.

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