The reliability and validity of the Death Obsession Scale among English university and adult samples

The reliability and concurrent validity of the 15-item Death Obsession Scale [Abdel-Khalek, A. M. (1998a). The structure and measurement of death obsession. Personality and Individual Differences, 24, 159–165] is examined among 174 English university students (83 men, 91 women) and 105 English adults (42 men, 63 women). Consistent with previous findings when using the Death Obsession Scale, the scale yields a three factor structure (‘death rumination’, ‘death dominance’ and ‘death idea repetition’), demonstrates adequate reliability statistics, and displays concurrent validity with expected significant positive correlations with measures of death anxiety, death depression, obsessional symptoms, anxiety, depression and neuroticism. These findings suggest confidence in the use of the Death Obsession Scale in empirical studies surrounding death distress among English speaking samples.