The Measurement of Communication Apprehension regarding the Terminally Ill

Abstract

In order to establish the reliability and validity of a scale assessing communication apprehension regarding the dying, measures of generalized communication apprehension (CA), communication apprehension regarding the dying (CA-Dying), and death anxiety were administered to fifty-nine individuals, twenty-nine of whom had enrolled in an eight-week hospice volunteer training program, and thirty of whom were on the hospice mailing list. Results suggested that the CA-Dying scale possessed more than adequate reliability (internal consistency, test-retest) and validity (correlations with death fear, susceptibility to volunteer training program effects). It was concluded that the CA-Dying scale may serve as a useful index of difficulties caregivers have in communicating with the terminally ill.