Abdelaziz M Thabet and Taysir Abdalla
Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the perception and relationship between death anxiety and death obsession among Palestinians university students. The sample consisted of 216 Palestinian university students enrolled in two universities in Gaza Strip (Al-Al-Azhar and Islamic University of Gaza) and one university in West Bank (Al Quds university of Jerusalem). Eighty-seven of the students (40.3%) were males and 129 (59.7%) were females. Age ranged from 17 to 30 years. Mean age was 20.4 years (SD=1.8). The researcher used three questionnaires; a predesigned socio- demographic sheet, death anxiety, obsessive about death scale. The study showed that mean death anxiety score was 60.39. The study showed that female student, and those live in Gaza Strip reported more death anxiety. Mean scores on the death obsession was more in students from Gaza. Mean scores of death dominance, death idea repetition, and death ruminations were higher in female’s students than males. There was a positive association between death anxiety and death obsession, death dominance, death idea repetition, and death ruminations.
Clinical implications: Our findings that university students had high scores of death anxiety, and obsessive anxiety could be the continuous conflict in the area and repeated exposure to war trauma in the area. Such findings highlight the need for establishing counselling centers in the universities to help students on overcoming their death anxiety and obsession. Also, there is needed for training courses for students in causes and ways of intervention with such problems.