Introduction: Although death anxiety is considered a universal phenomenon, attitudes toward death may vary across populations that differ in terms of religion and culture. Abdel-Khalek's Death Anxiety Scale (ASDA) was developed on the basis of the rationale that there are specific concepts related to death and after death in Muslim populations. This study aims to translate and adapt ASDA in the Turkish population, examine its validity and reliability, and to compare its psychometric properties with the widely used Templer's Death Anxiety Scale (DAS).
Methods: A total of 220 medical students were included in the study. The Turkish version of ASDA, DAS, and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale were used for data collection.
Results: Cronbach's alpha coefficients were .86 for ASDA and .66 for DAS. Analysis by principal components with varimax rotation produced five factors for ASDA that explained 65.6% of total variance. ASDA and DAS were highly correlated with each other (r=.68, p<.001).
Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that the Turkish version of Abdel-Khalek's Death Anxiety Scale is a reliable and valid instrument. The Turkish version of ASDA revealed better psychometric properties than DAS. This finding may reflect specific cultural and religious attitudes toward death or may result from more comprehensible language use in ASDA.
Keywords: Death anxiety; psychometric scale; reliability; validity.