Examining the Relationship between Personality, Perceived Social Support and Death Anxiety among Chronically Ill Patients in Federal Medical Centre, Makurdi, Nigeria

Abstract

Most health conditions are chronic in nature and due to improvement in medical and pharmacological breakthroughs and procedures; goals of treatment are, therefore not limited to preservation of life but more importantly to enhancing quality of life of individuals undergoing treatment. The present study investigated the relationship between personality traits, perceived social support and death anxiety among chronically ill patients in Federal Medical Centre, Makurdi. Adopting the ex-post facto research design, data was collected using the Big-Five personality scale, The Multidimensional scale of perceived social support and Death Anxiety Scale. Participants were 282 patients of the Federal Medical Centre, Makurdi, made up of 159 (56.4%) males and 123 (43.6%) females. Findings indicated significant relationship between Openness (β = .25, p<.05) and death anxiety while there was no significant relationship between extraversion (β =.071, p >.05), agreeableness (β =-.11, p>.05), conscientiousness (β =.068, p>.05) and neuroticism (β =.08, p>.05) and death anxiety. Results further showed that support from friends (β =-.07, p>.05) and support from significant others (β =.12, p>.05) were not significantly related to death anxiety while support from family (β =.42, p<.05) was significantly related to death anxiety. The study recommends that more attention is needed to discover the significant factors that predict death anxiety of chronically ill patients and also in future the current study should be replicated using larger groups of chronically ill patients from a greater variety of socio-economic backgrounds.