TABLE 2.

NANDA-I Death Anxiety Diagnosis

Death Anxiety (1998, 2006a)

Definition: Vague uneasy feeling of discomfort or dread generated by perceptions of a real or imagined threat to one's existence.

Defining characteristics

• Reports concerns of overworking the caregiver

• Reports deep sadness

• Reports fear of developing terminal illness

• Reports fear of loss of mental abilities when dying

• Reports fear of pain related to dying

• Reports fear of premature death

• Reports fear of the process of dying

• Reports fear of prolonged dying

• Reports fear of suffering related to dying

• Reports feeling powerless over dying

• Reports negative thoughts related to death and dying

• Reports worry about the impact of one's own death on significant others

Related factors

• Anticipating adverse consequences of general anesthesia

• Anticipating impact of death on others

• Anticipating pain

• Anticipating suffering

• Confronting reality of terminal disease

• Discussions on topic of death

• Experiencing dying process

• Near death experience

• Nonacceptance of own mortality

• Observations related to death

• Perceived proximity of death

• Uncertainty about an encounter with a higher power

• Uncertainty about the existence of a higher power

• Uncertainty about life after death

• Uncertainty of prognosis

Note. NANDA-I = North American Nursing Diagnosis Association International.

^aYears denote when death anxiety was defined and redefined, respectively.

Reprinted with permission (NANDA-I, 2007, pp. 11-12).