Death anxiety and interment stress family interventions for Filipino
older adults
Abstract
Objective: The overall intent of this conjoint analysis study
is to explicate family intervention preferences of the respondents (aged
18-75) to assist Filipino Older adults in coping with death anxiety and
interment stress.
Background: Distressing life circumstances such as death and
interment are better coped with family interventions. There have been
numerous studies on how family interventions assist in the treatment of
physiological and mental illnesses, but there is a continuing research
imperative to empirically establish specific family interventions which
are holistic and appropriate in cultural and social contexts.
Method: Conjoint analysis was utilized to identify the
preferred family intervention measures. A total of 214 adults from the
most populous group of islands in the Philippines qualified in the
inclusion criteria and after the ethical clearance was obtained, the
recruitment started via snowball sampling, following the inclusion
criteria set in this research. The demographic details were utilized for
the descriptive and inferential statistics of this study, and the
orthogonal plan cards were generated via SPSS software to create the
orthogonal profiles.
Results: The outcomes of the statistics demonstrated that the
conjoint model performed for this study was considerably fit: Pearson’s
R is .670, p<.01, Kendall’s Tau is .487, p<.05.
Results showed that the cognitive state (23.272%) is the most important
and the spiritual state (17.256%) as the least important attribute of
family interventions. Part-worth of family interventions showed favoring
the following: Medical routines and procedures (.342) for the physical
state; mental health awareness (.266) for mental state; livelihood
trainings (.051) for social state; family therapy (.022) for
psychological state; and church activities (.017) for the spiritual
state. The correlation analysis showed that the spiritual state is
significantly correlated with age (r = 0.151, p < 0.05) and
number of children (r = 0.143, p < 0.05).
Conclusion: This conjoint analysis study provided empirical
evidence for identifying preferences of family intervention measures in
a holistic perspective by combining physical, mental, social,
psychological and spiritual attributes. The findings rendered a
multi-modal structure to cope with death anxiety and interment stress
that will have a significant bearing in the overall care of the older
adult in the family and improve family dynamics.
Implications: The findings will subscribe to the knowledge base
useful in family theories and relations, developmental psychology,
ageing studies, gerontological psychology and educational gerontology.
Moreover, the significant findings will greatly contribute in
implementing effective psychosocial and psychoeducational strategies
towards the mental health care of the older adult population.