Meta- analysis of studies on death anxiety

Understanding the psychological characteristics and factors and provoking the anxiety of death in today's living conditions, as well as its psychological events and consequences are among the topics discussed in psychology. Many researches have investigated the relationship between different psychological factors and death anxiety, but sometimes their results are inconsistent and contradictory and, on the other hand, explanatory variables have not been thoroughly investigated in this regard. Meta-analysis is a set of systematic techniques for solving contradictions in the findings of various researches on a subject. The present study was conducted to investigate the relationship between psychological factors and psychological factors and death anxiety in a meta-analysis method. At first, using all the internal databases as well as the universities of Tehran, we started to collect all the research reports. Finally, the results of 44 studies conducted between 2009 and 2011 that were the criterion for entering the meta-analysis were analyzed. The results of the meta-analysis showed that the size of the combined effect of the studies in the static effects model was 0.018 and in the randomized model -0.022, where the size of the combined effect in both models was low, but it was observed separately in the study of the effect size of the variables. The variables of irrational beliefs, control source, job burnout, cognitive fusion, self-actualization, self-determination, meaning, life expectancy and neuroticism are medium-sized. Therefore, it is concluded that knowledge of death plays an important role in various theories including fear management, existential therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Among them, the theory of fear management is a theoretical, leading and influential approach to death anxiety that can explain these variables.