An Examination Of Age And Years Of Study As A Factor Influencing Attitude Of Nigerian Students Towards Death Anxiet

Abstract

This study investigated age and years of study as a factors influencing attitude of Nigeria students towards
death anxiety. A total of 160 participants comprising 100 young students (56 fresh and 44 stale), and 60 adult
students (34 fresh and 26 stale) were recruited from the population of undergraduate student of Faculty of
Social Sciences Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka-Nigeria. They are between the ages of 17-32 years, with
a mean age of 20.8, and standard deviation of 2.3 years. They were drawn from different faculties of social
sciences, The Death anxiety Scale (DAS) developed by Templar (1970) and validated in Nigeria by
Adebakin (1990), Erinoso (1996) and Uzosike (1998). It is 15-item inventory designed to measure the
concerns, fears, apprehensions and forebodings people often have about dying. It was a survey design and
two-way ANOVA was employed for data analysis. Two research hypotheses were postulated: that age will
significantly influence the attitude of Nigeria students towards death anxiety and that years of study will
significantly influence the attitude of Nigeria students towards death anxiety. The findings indicated that
years of study and age as a factors yielded no statistically significant effect on the attitude of Nigeria students
towards death anxiety. The implication of this study show that age and years of study as factor yielded no
significant effect on attitude of Nigeria students towards death anxiety is that young students and fresh
students will express the same pattern of death anxiety like stale students will express the same pattern of
death anxiety like adult students. It implies that both young and older, fresh students and stale students
requires psycho-education on death and anxiety management training in order to cope with death and its
attendant anxiety to enhance their well being and academic performance. It is evident that, death anxiety is a
common social problem witnessed in similar way among university students. This requires attention of
university authorities and mental health professionals to enhance and promote the well-being of the student
and their academic performance.