Roles of Gender, Personality Type and Coping Pattern on Death Anxiety among Police Officers in Owerri, Imo State

Roles of Gender, Personality Type and Coping Pattern on Death Anxiety among Police Officers in Owerri, Imo State.

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the role of gender, personality type and coping pattern on death anxiety among police officers in Owerri, Imo State.

Two hundred and fourty-two (242) police officers were sampled using convenience sampling method from the Imo State Central Police Station at Shell Camp Owerri participated in this study.

Participants were within the age range of 26 to 57 years with a mean age of 40.23. The participants were administered with the Type A Behaviour Scale, Death Anxiety Scale (DAS) and the Problem Focus Inventory (PFI). Three hypotheses were postulated and tested. Cross sectional survey design was adopted and 3-Way ANOVA was used to analyze data.

Result showed that personality type had no significant influence on death anxiety while coping pattern had significant influence death anxiety.

Also, gender had no significant influence death anxiety. The study also revealed that there is no gender difference in death anxiety and helps to refute the common belief that females have higher death anxiety levels.

INTRODUCTION

The history of human life has shown that there are events that happen to humans, which they have no control of and which is considered their fate. One of these events is death and it is faced with different analyses. Some consider it as a stage of human life, and some consider it as the end of life.

Although it seems that those who believe in the first instance should worry about death less, the reality is that followers of both perspectives often feel anxiety from thinking about death (Vafaei, Asgarizadeh and Rahmati, 2011).

Phrases such as “kicked the bucket, passed away, moved on, laid to rest and went to a better place” are used to discuss death. Hence, the thought of death or dying is something that is uncomfortable and to some extent frightening, for some, if not most people in modern society (Chiun & Choo, 2009).

Death anxiety has always been a prominent research topic in modern societies where it is believed that this anxiety can be attenuated by different variables (Chiun & Choo, 2009).

Death is viewed as an event that one generally has no control over and thus generates anxiety amongst people (Schumaker, Barracholugh & Vagg, 1988).

This anxiety is thus termed “Death anxiety”. Death anxiety is an attitude that an individual holds toward death and can be defined as a negative and apprehensive feeling that one has when thinking about death and dying (Richardson, Berman, & Piwowarski, 1983) and is used interchangeably with fear of death (Wink & Scott, 2005).

As with all types of attitude, many factors are involved in influencing and shaping an individual’s death anxiety.

Thus, it has come to no surprise to researchers that many variables could affect the degree to which an individual experiences death anxiety, and these variables include; age, gender, religious beliefs, one’s coping pattern, and health (Fortner & Neimeyer, 1999).

All of these variables affect people’s experiences and it is these experience that prompt people to re-evaluate and re-examine certain attitudes and beliefs they hold.

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