Death obsession in Egyptian samples: Differences among people with anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, addictions, and normals

Seven groups (n = 765) of Egyptian normals (non-clinical), anxiety disorder patients, and patients suffering from schizophrenia (males and females), and addicts (males only) were selected. They were generally matched as groups according to age, occupation, and education. All participants responded, individually, to the Death Obsession Scale (DOS). Cronbach's alpha reliability statistics for the 7 groups ranged between .83 and .94, denoting from good to high internal consistency of the DOS. The most singular finding is that the female and male anxiety disorder patients' means were greatly and significantly higher than the means of the other five groups. The other salient differences were that female schizophrenics had a significantly higher mean than both male normals and male schizophrenics. Male schizophrenics and male normals had, respectively, the lowest mean DOS scores. The male addicts had a mean DOS score that was less than both male and female anxiety disorder groups. Females have higher mean DOS scores than their male counterparts in the normal, anxiety disorder patients, and patients suffering from schizophrenia groups.