The Corriveau-Kelly Death Anxiety Scale

The purpose of this study was to develop a more reliable and sensitive death anxiety scale. In the first study, Templer's Death Anxiety Scale and a newly-developed scale, the Corriveau-Kelly Death Anxiety Scale, were administered to 108 psychology students at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Test-retest reliability coefficients for Templer's scale and the new instrument were .85 and .95 respectively while internal consistency coefficients for Templer's scale and the new scale were .73 and .95 respectively. In the second study, both death anxiety scales were administered to twenty-six hospice volunteers before and after training. Whereas Templer's scale was not able to detect a statistically significant change ( t = 1.9, p > .05), the new instrument showed a significant decrease in death anxiety after training ( t = 2.6, p = .01). The results of both studies suggest that the new scale appears to be more reliable and more sensitive to experimental outcomes than Templer's scale.