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Cross-cultural validity of the Death Reflection Scale during the COVID-19 pandemic

BACKGROUND: The global COVID-19 pandemic confronts people with their fragility, vulnerability, and mortality. To date, scales to measure death awareness mainly focus on the anxiety-provoking aspect of mortality cues. This study aims to cross-culturally adapt and validate the Death Reflection Scale (...

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Autores principales: Ramsenthaler, Christina, Baumann, Klaus, Büssing, Arndt, Becker, Gerhild
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9382129/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35992449
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.957177
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author Ramsenthaler, Christina
Baumann, Klaus
Büssing, Arndt
Becker, Gerhild
author_facet Ramsenthaler, Christina
Baumann, Klaus
Büssing, Arndt
Becker, Gerhild
author_sort Ramsenthaler, Christina
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The global COVID-19 pandemic confronts people with their fragility, vulnerability, and mortality. To date, scales to measure death awareness mainly focus on the anxiety-provoking aspect of mortality cues. This study aims to cross-culturally adapt and validate the Death Reflection Scale (DRS), a scale for measuring positive, growth-oriented cognitions of life reflection and prosocial behavior following confrontation with the finiteness of life. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The Death Reflection Scale was translated and adapted in a multi-step process to the German language. In this anonymous, cross-sectional, online survey at a large university in Germany, students, healthcare professionals (HCP) and other staff completed the DRS alongside comparison measures. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess configural, metric, and scalar measurement equivalence across four age and occupational groups. Convergent/divergent validity testing was done via Spearman correlations. RESULTS: 1,703 participants provided data for a response rate of ∼5%. 24% of respondents were HCP, 22% students. Confirmatory factor analysis showed a higher-order structure of the DRS with a strong general factor and the originally proposed five subscales (CFI 0.945, SRMR 0.045, RMSEA 0.055). Multi-group CFA showed partial metric equivalence across age groups and partial scalar invariance across occupational groups. Non-invariant scales were the Motivation to live, Putting life into perspective, and Legacy subscales. In the convergent validity testing, two hypotheses were fully confirmed, two partially and four were not confirmed. Experiencing a propensity for increased contemplation and life reflection during the pandemic together with spirituality showed correlations of moderate to large size to the DRS and its subscales (Spearman’s rho ranging from 0.31 to 0.52). CONCLUSION: Further conceptual work for death awareness to explore the construct’s stability in different population groups needs to be undertaken. However, the DRS can be mostly used to assess positive and growth-oriented aspects of death awareness and death reflection which may be an important avenue when developing counseling and support interventions for groups experiencing a high burden during the pandemic.
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spelling pubmed-93821292022-08-18 Cross-cultural validity of the Death Reflection Scale during the COVID-19 pandemic Ramsenthaler, Christina Baumann, Klaus Büssing, Arndt Becker, Gerhild Front Psychol Psychology BACKGROUND: The global COVID-19 pandemic confronts people with their fragility, vulnerability, and mortality. To date, scales to measure death awareness mainly focus on the anxiety-provoking aspect of mortality cues. This study aims to cross-culturally adapt and validate the Death Reflection Scale (DRS), a scale for measuring positive, growth-oriented cognitions of life reflection and prosocial behavior following confrontation with the finiteness of life. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The Death Reflection Scale was translated and adapted in a multi-step process to the German language. In this anonymous, cross-sectional, online survey at a large university in Germany, students, healthcare professionals (HCP) and other staff completed the DRS alongside comparison measures. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess configural, metric, and scalar measurement equivalence across four age and occupational groups. Convergent/divergent validity testing was done via Spearman correlations. RESULTS: 1,703 participants provided data for a response rate of ∼5%. 24% of respondents were HCP, 22% students. Confirmatory factor analysis showed a higher-order structure of the DRS with a strong general factor and the originally proposed five subscales (CFI 0.945, SRMR 0.045, RMSEA 0.055). Multi-group CFA showed partial metric equivalence across age groups and partial scalar invariance across occupational groups. Non-invariant scales were the Motivation to live, Putting life into perspective, and Legacy subscales. In the convergent validity testing, two hypotheses were fully confirmed, two partially and four were not confirmed. Experiencing a propensity for increased contemplation and life reflection during the pandemic together with spirituality showed correlations of moderate to large size to the DRS and its subscales (Spearman’s rho ranging from 0.31 to 0.52). CONCLUSION: Further conceptual work for death awareness to explore the construct’s stability in different population groups needs to be undertaken. However, the DRS can be mostly used to assess positive and growth-oriented aspects of death awareness and death reflection which may be an important avenue when developing counseling and support interventions for groups experiencing a high burden during the pandemic. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-08-03 /pmc/articles/PMC9382129/ /pubmed/35992449 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.957177 Text en Copyright © 2022 Ramsenthaler, Baumann, Büssing and Becker. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Ramsenthaler, Christina
Baumann, Klaus
Büssing, Arndt
Becker, Gerhild
Cross-cultural validity of the Death Reflection Scale during the COVID-19 pandemic
title Cross-cultural validity of the Death Reflection Scale during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full Cross-cultural validity of the Death Reflection Scale during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_fullStr Cross-cultural validity of the Death Reflection Scale during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Cross-cultural validity of the Death Reflection Scale during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_short Cross-cultural validity of the Death Reflection Scale during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_sort cross-cultural validity of the death reflection scale during the covid-19 pandemic
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9382129/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35992449
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.957177
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