Investigation of fear levels and death perceptions of university students during the COVID 19 process

The aim of this study is to examine the fear levels and death perceptions of university students according to some variables during the Covid-19 pandemic process. The population of the research consists of Ondokuz Mayıs University students, and the sample consists of 379 university students selected by random sampling method from students studying at various faculties at Ondokuz Mayıs University during the pandemic process. In order to collect data, "Personal Information Form", "Covid-19 Fear Scale" and "Death Perception Scale", which includes some socio-demographic questions, were used. SPSS 25 program was used for statistical operations. Confidence level was taken as 0.05 in all analyzes. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was performed to test whether the data were normally distributed. For statistical comparisons, t-test for independent variables in pairwise comparisons, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for multiple comparisons, and post-hoc analysis (LSD Test) were used to determine the variables that differed in multiple comparisons. In the study, there was no significant difference when the fear levels were examined according to gender, sports status, whether to catch Covid-19 and whether or not to be vaccinated (p>0.05), but according to the field of education, the status of deceased relatives and the state of thinking after death. A statistically significant difference was found (p<0.05). When the death perception scale scores were examined, there was no statistically significant difference in the death perception scores according to the deceased relative status and the state of thinking after death (p>0.05), according to the gender, according to the Covid-19 status, according to the field of education, sports Statistically significant differences were found in rewarding, courage, unknown and suffering sub-dimensions in death perception variables according to the status of being vaccinated and not being vaccinated (p<0.05). Finally, a positive correlation was found between the total score of perception of death and fear of death (p<0.001). As the fear of Covid-19 increased, the death perception score increased. In other words, the increase in the death perception score increases the fear of Covid-19. Keywords: Covid-19, Fear, Perception of Death