The effect of listening to Tavasol prayer on death anxiety in older adult.

Anxiety of death is a real anxiety and one of the most components in the mental health of people, especially the elderly. Prayer therapy is a traditional intervention to alleviate disease and promote health.  Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the effect of listening to prayer on death anxiety of elderly in Kashan.

This clinical trial study was performed on 70 elderly in Kashan , 2019. Patients were randomly assigned to control and intervention groups. Before intervention, demographic data and death anxiety questionnaires were completed by patients in both groups. In the intervention group, during one month, every other day (three times a week) after the Maghreb and Esha prayers at the Saraallah Mosque in Kashan, the Tavasol prayer was recited with the voice of Haji Mehdi Samavati through a speaker. The control group did not receive any intervention. The death anxiety questionnaire was completed again immediately after the end of the intervention and one month later in two groups. Data were analyzed using ANOVA, Chi-square and independent and paired t-test in SPSS v=16 software.

The results showed that there was no significant difference in demographic data and mean score of death anxiety before intervention between the two groups (p> 0.05). But immediately after the sessions and one month after the intervention, there was a statistically significant difference in the mean score of death anxiety in the two groups. (p< 0.05). The results of the repeated measures ANOVA showed that the mean changes of death anxiety varied over time and the interaction between group and time was significant for the variable of death anxiety (p <0.05).

The results of this study showed that listening to Tavasol prayer will improve the death anxiety of elderly. Therefore, prayer therapy may be a useful and effective intervention to improve the death anxiety of elderly.