Relationships among death anxiety, attitudes toward aging, and experience with death in nursing home employees

Measures of death anxiety, attitudes toward aging, and experience with death were obtained from 133 nursing home employees representing eight occupational subgroups. Increasing death anxiety was associated with greater anxiety toward aging. Greater exposure to deaths of residents was significantly related to more reported comfort in thinking about or discussing death and dying. The results indicate that a connection between old age and death may underlie the relationship between death anxiety and attitudes toward elderly adults.