Relationships between religiousness and death anxiety: A omparative research of those who are committed to sufism and those who are not

The aim of this research is to examine the relationships between religiosity and death anxiety. In this context, comparing the religiosity and death anxiety levels of Sufi and non-Sufi individuals is among the aims of the research. For this purpose, a literature review was conducted and the theoretical framework was established. Then, in accordance with the objectives of the research, the questionnaire technique, one of the quantitative method techniques, was applied. The population of the research consists of individuals living in Turkey who are affiliated with Sufism and who are not. The sample of the research consists of a total of 428 individuals, 214 individuals who are affiliated with Sufism and 214 individuals who are not affiliated with Sufism, living in various provinces of our country, especially in Afyonkarahisar, Konya and Eskişehir. Personal Information Form, Ok-Religious Attitude Scale and Thorson-Powell Death Anxiety Scale were used as tools for data collection in the study. SPSS 25 package programme was used to analyse the data. In order to analyse the data, t test and Man Whitney U Test were used to compare two independent groups. One Way Anova Test and Kruskal Wallis Test were used to compare more than two independent groups. Spearman Correlation was applied to determine the relationship between religiosity and death anxiety scores. According to the findings obtained from the analysis, it was determined that there was a significant negative relationship between the participants' religious attitude scores and death anxiety scores. In the study, it was observed that the religiosity scores of individuals who were affiliated with Sufism were significantly higher and their death anxiety scores were significantly lower than those who were not. It has been determined that among individuals who are affiliated with Sufism, those who engage in death anxiety have significantly higher death anxiety scores than those who do not.