A Cross-Cultural Examination of Fears of Death among Saudi Arabians

Abstract

This article examines the factor structure of an eight-dimensional fear of death scale (Hoelter's multidimensional fear of death scale), which was translated into Arabic and administered to a sample of Saudi Arabian students temporarily living in the United States. The factor structure obtained in the present study only partially supports the factor structure first obtained by Hoelter (1979) for a United States sample, which was later replicated by Walkey (1982) for a New Zealand sample. The usefulness of Hoelter's eight fears of death and dying subscales in relation to Arabic populations is discussed.