Effects of exposure to death via the COVID-19 pandemic on death anxiety and acceptance of emerging adults

ABSTRACT

Despite the knowledge that death is inevitable, people struggle to cope with death. The way in which a person thinks about death has important implications for his or her quality of life. Fear or avoidance of preparing for death has been associated with lower quality of life, increased medical interventions at the end of life, and physical and emotional pain and suffering. Exposure to death, however, has been shown to improve comfort with death and reduce feelings of anxiety. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased people's exposure to death tremendously. By utilizing data collected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and collecting Mid-Pandemic data from the original participants and a new cohort, I examined the relationship between this prolonged and intense exposure to death and participants' death acceptance and avoidance. Results were mixed as longitudinal results indicated exposure was associated with a decrease in acceptance of death, whereas cross-sectional and cohort comparison data indicate no significant relationship. Positive functioning did moderate the relationship between exposure and death acceptance those with higher positive functioning reported a positive relationship between exposure to the pandemic and greater death acceptance during the pandemic in the cross-sectional design. Longitudinal and cohort comparison data indicate those with low positive functioning were able to increase their death acceptance during the pandemic. Participants expressed more comfort with their own death during the COVID-19 pandemic, though they expressed less comfort with the death of others. This study highlights the challenges in measuring changes in death attitudes as well as the ways in which emerging adults have come to view death during the pandemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)