Single- versus multi-item scales in measuring death anxiety

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Assessing death anxiety is crucial in clinical and research settings.
• Existing multi-item instruments can be lengthy, posing challenges in certain contexts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the reliability and concurrent validity of a single-item self-rating scale for death anxiety.
• To compare the efficacy of a brief measure against established psychometric instruments.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study involving 1,439 participants across Egypt and Kuwait.
• Participants completed a single-item death anxiety measure and three established multi-item scales.
• Analysis included reliability (e.g., test-retest) and correlation analyses.

Main Results:

• The single-item scale exhibited high reliability (test-retest = .82).
• Statistically significant positive correlations (p < .001) were found between the single-item and multi-item scales, ranging from .30 to .66 (median = .51).
• Both single- and multi-item scales demonstrated high internal reliabilities.

Conclusions:

• A single-item assessment of death anxiety is a reliable and valid tool.
• This brief measure shows moderate correlation with established multi-item instruments.
• The findings support the use of single-item scales for efficient death anxiety assessment.