| Fear of death is a global and cultural issue. The aim of the present study was to develop and validate a scale for afterlife fears in the Iranian sample. This study was an exploratory sequential mixed method design. The Qualitative phase included semi-structured interviews with 12 acute cardiac patients. The content of patients answers about afterlife fears rearranged as 14 items for quantitative phase. At the quantitative phase, 313 subjects (230 women and 83 men) were selected from Tehran city and carried out the questionnaires online. For studying construct validity of Afterlife Fear Scale, the responses of normal sample analyzed by exploratory factor analysis method. For assessing the concurrent validity of new Afterlife Fears Scale, its correlation with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II, 1996) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (SES, 1965) were calculated. Data analysis was performed using Pearson correlation coefficient, exploratory factor analysis, principal component extraction method and parallel analysis. Three factors were extracted which were named as "fear of punishment and grave torment", "loneliness and abandonment" and "longing and confidence in God", respectively. The internal consistency method was used to determine the reliability of the scale. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the subscales ranged from .63 to .88, which indicated the appropriate internal consistency of the scale and its components. The Afterlife Fears Scale has good reliability and validity in the Iranian Muslim sample and can be used to identify the underpinning fears of cardiovascular patients and anxiety reduction interventions, as well as cross-cultural comparisons. |
