Mediating role of death anxiety in explaining causal relationships between meaning of life and quality of life

One of the critical periods of life is elderly, in which people face various physical and mental problems that affect their quality of life. The purpose of this research was to present a structural model based on quality of life and meaning of life with the mediating role of death anxiety. This was a descriptive correlational study of the structural equation type. The statistical population of the present study included employees and retirees aged 50 to 65 years of Tehran's offices and organizations in 1401-1402, from which 354 people were selected as a sample group according to death anxiety questionnaires (Templer, 1970), quality of life. (World Health Organization, 1989), the meaning of life (Steger et al., 2006) and self-compassion (Neff et al., 2003). The obtained data were analyzed by structural equation method and AMOS24 software. The results showed that the structural model of the research fits the collected data. The path coefficient between death anxiety and meaning of life (β=-0.474, P=0.001) is negative and the path coefficient between death anxiety and quality of life (β=-0.388, P=0.001) is negative for the total path coefficient Between meaning of life and quality of life (P=0.001, β=0.499) is positive and significant. Also, the indirect path coefficient between meaning of life and quality of life is positive and significant (P=0.001, β=0.184). According to the results of the present study, it can be said that death anxiety can affect the relationship between the meaning of life and the quality of life. The results of this research can be used by counselors and psychologists.

Key words: death anxiety, quality of life, meaning of life