Death Anxiety and Attitudes towards Death in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis: An Exploratory Study
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Death and the anxiety of it becomes more apparent when confronted with a chronic disease. Even though multiple sclerosis (MS) is a treatable condition today, it is still accompanied by a multitude of impairments, which in turn may intensify of death anxiety. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between depression, anxiety and death anxiety in individuals with MS. METHODS: Fifty-six MS patients were recruited at the Department of Neurology of the University Clinic in Basel. Death anxiety was assessed using the Bochumer Questionnaire on attitude to death and death anxiety 2.0 (BOFRETTA 2.0). RESULTS: Scores of death anxiety towards it in MS patients were low. Only disability (EDSS) was moderately correlated with death anxiety. Depression in MS was significantly correlated with fatigue and disability, but not with the BOFRETTA 2.0. CONCLUSION: Scores of death anxiety and the attitude towards death are low in this MS cohort. It was shown that both psychopathological and neurological deficits impact the subject of death with respect to multiple sclerosis.
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Individuals with MS are at heightened risk for mental health disorders, such as depression and various forms of anxiety, including death anxiety.
“Furthermore, individuals with MS are at a heightened risk for mental health disorders, such as depression and various forms of anxiety, including death anxiety (DA), which is characterized by intense feelings of terror, fear, or excessive worry regarding the process of dying, severing connection with the world, or uncertainties about what happens after death.”
From Comparing the Effects of Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Quality of Life and Death Anxiety in Women With Multiple Sclerosis (2025) · cites this paper as [8]
The Introduction states that clinically relevant depression and anxiety are more common in people with MS than in the general population. It does not establish a heightened risk of death anxiety in MS; the Discussion instead says that chronic disease itself was not responsible for increased death anxiety in this cohort. The paper discusses fear of dying, but does not give the citing sentence’s full characterization of death anxiety. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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- Authors
- Francalancia, J., Mavrogiorgou, P., Juckel, G., Mitrovic, T., Kuhle, J., Naegelin, Y., Kappos, L., & Calabrese, P.
- Affiliations
- University of Basel (CH)
- Ruhr University Bochum (DE)
- Department of Neurology, University Clinic Basel, Petersgraben 4, 4031 Basel, Switzerland
- University Hospital of Basel (CH)
- Corresponding author
- Calabrese, Pasquale
- ORCID
- Venue
- Brain Sciences
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2021-07-22
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 964
- ISSN
- 2076-3425 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC8391402
- OpenAlex
- W3186335417
- Cited by
- 19
- References
- 30
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 2.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Brain Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pathology and Forensic Medicine › Multiple Sclerosis Research Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Death, Funerary Practices, and Mourning
- Keywords
- fear of death, attitudes toward death, multiple sclerosis, depression, anxiety, disability, fatigue, Expanded Disability Status Scale
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