The Farsi translation, reliability and validity of the Death Concern Scale

Death concern is a conscious contemplation of the reality of death combined with a negative evaluation of that reality. The Death Concern Scale (DCS) is related to thinking, and death fear or anxiety about death. The aim of the present study was to develop a Farsi version of the DCS and to explore its psychometric properties in a sample of Iranian nurses.

A cross-sectional study was conducted to investigate the reliability, validity, and factorial structure of the Farsi version of the DCS in a convenience sample of 106 Iranian nurses in two hospitals in Tehran, Iran. The nurses completed the DCS, the Collett-Lester Fear of Death Scale (CLFDS), the Death Anxiety Scale (DAS), the Reasons for Death Fear Scale (RDFS), the Death Depression Scale (DDS), and the Death Obsession Scale (DOS).

For the DCS, Cronbach's α was 0.77, the Spearman-Brown coefficient 0.63, the Guttman split-half coefficient 0.62, and two-week test-retest reliability 0.77. The DCS correlated at 0.51 with the CLFDS, 0.52 with the DAS, 0.34 with the RDFS, 0.40 with the DDS, and 0.48 with the DOS, indicating good construct and criterion-related validity. The results of an exploratory factor analysis for the DCS identified seven factors, accounting for 64.30% of the variance and indicating considerable heterogeneity in the content of the items.

The Farsi version of the DCS has good validity and reliability, and it can be used in clinical, educational, and research settings to assess death concerns in the Iranian society.