An Analysis of the Latent Class and Influencing Factors of Death Anxiety Among Han Chinese and Tibetan College Students

In this study, 349 Han and 217 Tibetan college students were investigated via the Templer Death Anxiety Scale in order to assess the potential class and influencing factors of death anxiety among them. In addition, Mplus software was used to analyse the latent categories of their death anxiety, and an R3STEP approach was adopted to perform a multinomial logistic regression of its influencing factors. Whilst the results of the former indicated that there are two latent classes, respectively, defined as ‘high death anxiety type’ (Han 65.20%; Tibetan 30.30%) and ‘low death anxiety type’ (Han 34.80%; Tibetan 69.70%), the latter demonstrated that compared with the ‘low death anxiety type’, the occurrence ratio of the ‘high death anxiety type’ was 47.00 and 34.04 percentage points higher with each increase in age. Furthermore, the stress and anxiety of Han and Tibetan college students were found to constitute factors that affect death anxiety. More specifically, the death anxiety of Tibetan college students was determined to be deeply influenced by a belief in the afterlife.