ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Death is part of life. The awareness that death is inevitable could be the cause of mental disorders. OBJECTIVE: To determine the level of death anxiety in old people as regards age, gender, social aspects, physical and leisure activities, self-esteem, religion or advanced disease, as well as their preferences on the place where they want to die. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Cross-sectional observational study. Face-to-face interviews and Death Anxiety Scale (DAS) of Templer on 300 patients over 75years-old without a diagnosis of dementia, selected randomly in four health centres. RESULTS: A total of 288 surveys were completed. The mean age was 84.8 (15.2) years, and 147 (51.0%) were older than 85years. The score of medium-high anxiety observed in the DAS was higher in women (50%-39.6%; P=.030), in those who did not perform physical activity (68%-26.4%; P<.001), in those who did not take part in leisure activities (63.5%-41.7%; P=.007), in patients with depressed mood (60.4%-41.6%; P<.008), and in patients without advanced disease (48.3%-3 5.8%; P=.036). The fear of having a painful death was present in 255 (88.5%). Physical activity reduced the risk of medium-high anxiety by 5.3 times (OR=.188, P<.001), and screening positive for depression increased it by 2.9 times (OR=2.943, P=.014). As regards the place where they would prefer to die, 177 (61.5%) answered «at home¼, and 28 (9.7%) «in the hospital.¼ CONCLUSIONS: Older people do fear a painful death, but they are not really afraid of dying. Male gender and performing physical or leisure activities is related to low levels of death anxiety. Advanced disease leads to greater acceptance of the end of life. The desire to die at home, and to «dehospitalise¼ the death prevails.
