Mediator role of presence of meaning and self-esteem in the relationship of social support and death anxiety

Yuxin Huang; Ziyao Guan; Fang Yan; James A Wiley; Nancy R Reynolds; Siyuan Tang; Mei Sun

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1018097

Mediator role of presence of meaning and self-esteem in the relationship of social support and death anxiety

Front Psychol. 2022 Dec 5:13:1018097. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1018097. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Yuxin Huang^{1

2}, Ziyao Guan³, Fang Yan², James A Wiley^{1

4}, Nancy R Reynolds⁵, Siyuan Tang², Mei Sun²

Affiliations

¹ Teaching and Research Section of Clinical Nursing, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China.
² Xiangya School of Nursing, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China.
³ School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
⁴ Family and Community Medicine and Institute of Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States.
⁵ School of Nursing, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States.

Abstract

Introduction: Death anxiety has increased following the COVID-19 pandemic. Although terror management theory has suggested social support, presence of meaning and self-esteem functioned as death anxiety buffers, few existing works have explored the mechanism of how social support, presence of meaning, and self-esteem buffer death anxiety. To identify these mechanisms is the aim of this study.

Methods: Our cross-sectional study was conducted with 1167 people in China from 19 May 2020 to 1 June 2020 during the COVID-19 outbreak. The average age of participants was 26 years. Data were by questionnaire, including demographic information, the Templer's Death anxiety scale, the multidimensional scale of perceived social support, the presence of meaning scale, and the Rosenberg self-esteem scale.

Results: Results using structural equation modeling showed presence of meaning and self-esteem fully mediated the relationship between social support and death anxiety, respectively and sequentially. The proposed model showed good fit of indices: χ² = 243.384, df = 58, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.968, TLI = 0.954, RMSEA = 0.052, SRMR = 0.044.

Discussion: This study demonstrates significant mediator roles of presence of meaning and self-esteem in the relationship of social support and death anxiety. Multi-component interventions are needed to manage death anxiety by targeting increasing social support, presence of meaning and self-esteem and increasing presence of meaning and self-esteem when social support is diminished in the pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; death anxiety; presence of meaning; self-esteem; social support; terror management theory.