Single- versus multi-item scales in measuring death anxiety

Abstract

The author investigated the reliability and concurrent validity of a Likert-type single-item test asking for a self-rating of death anxiety in two Arabic countries: Egypt and Kuwait. A total of 1,439 participants were divided into 9 male and female subsamples and were tested by a single item of death anxiety, along with three psychometric multi-item instruments (i.e., Templer's Death Anxiety Scale, Thorson and Powell's Revised Death Anxiety Scale, and the Arabic Scale of Death Anxiety). The single- and multi-item scales had high reliabilities. All of the thirteen correlations between the single-item and the multi-item scales of death anxiety among men and women were statistically significant (p less than .001) and positive. They ranged from .30 to .66, with a median of .51. It was concluded that single-item assessment can be reliable across time (test-retest = .82) and that it correlates moderately with multi-item instruments.