Get ready for a good death, researchers say

For an island whose centuries-old faith is tied to the redemptive death – and rebirth – of the son of God, the afterlife is a given for believers.

Clearly even for this Catholic nation, heaven is no given – for those who “strongly disagree” that the pearly gates await their departed soul are no small minority, according to a University of Malta death attitude profile survey.

According to this profile commissioned by the Faculty for Social Wellbeing, 21% of respondents said they “strongly disagree” with a heaven after death, while 23% are undecided. Another 22% “strongly agree”.

The DAP-R (death attitude profile, revised) measures a broad spectrum of death attitudes: for example, those with low death fear and a high escape acceptance, are arguably very different from those with a low level of fear but high neutral acceptance – the former is probably tired of living, the latter highly motivated to complete their life tasks before kicking the bucket.

The profile ultimately invites researchers to study how individuals psychologically prepare themselves for the final exit, measuring the different routes towards death acceptance based on life accomplishments, incurable illness, or other existential circumstances.

Dean of the Faculty for Social Wellbeing, Andrew Azzopardi

Developed by researchers Robert Kastenbaum and Norman Farberow in the 1970s, it consists of a series of statements individuals are asked to respond to, based on their level of agreement or disagreement. It is an overlong litany of statements, but they help researchers create a framework to assess a person’s fear of death, propensity to avoid thinking or confronting death, willingness to approach death as a natural part of life, escape acceptance (belief in the afterlife), and their neutral acceptance – a detached acceptance of death without strong emotional reactions.

Death is, of course, a difficult subject for many. How far a picture of ‘death literacy’ – as faculty dean Prof. Andrew Azzopardi puts it – this survey of the Maltese gives us, is a moot point. At various stages in our growth, our view of death may change, from fearful prospect to a longing for finality and palliative release. So, it would be presumptuous to glean hard facts about what the Maltese “think” of death in 2023 based on a survey.

But Azzopardi thinks that with the data showing many seeing death as a door to shut close on temporal problems – well over 50% – and perhaps a sustained belief in the afterlife, not everyone is ready to pave their road meaningfully towards the final exit.

According to this profile, 69% see death as “no doubt a grim experience”, but then 29% consider the prospect of death as “a source of anxiety”, and then 30% say they strongly disagree being “disturbed by the finality of death”.

Those who believe in heaven (one assumes) strongly agree that it is a “better place than the world” (39%) yet for some reason 18% strongly disagree. In another statement that may or may not deal with the afterlife, 25% strongly agree that “death is an entrance to a place of ultimate satisfaction”, but 16% strongly disagree and 19% are undecided.

And while 67% say death “should be viewed as a natural, undeniable, and unavoidable event” another 43% are reassured that it will end all their troubles. Another 51% agree death means “deliverance from pain”.

Azzopardi believes the data ultimately is a sign that the Maltese do not talk about death enough, and that apart from philosophical considerations, there are pragmatic reasons to talk about this one given axiom of life. “We do deal with death at many stages in our life, but how do we process this reality? Because it is itself a process that comes with trauma, and not only if you happen to be sick or old and dealing with the prospect of mortality. So, you might want to start thinking about unfinished business in life, well before you realise the end is nigh.”

It would mean, Azzopardi suggests, for example talking about such realities as work, about the accumulation of wealth, about how we frame our ambitions in a life that will ultimately be bookmarked by death.

“You could ask yourself whether we should be ‘working ourselves to death’ when we won’t take our money with us when we die, or whether we can resolve differences with people we dislike now rather than wrapping it up on the threshold of death.”

Existentially, it would mean to become aware more of humankind’s finality too. If the climate crisis opens the world “to the gates of hell”, as United Nations secretary-general Antonio Gutierrez said last week, the immediate affirmation should be for a life lived less in thrall to the worldly bonds of money or conspicuous consumption. That we may die well.