Consequences of Death Awareness in Adolescents' Lives: A Qualitative Study

Aim: The present research intended to investigate the outcomes of death awareness in life from the perspective of Iranian adolescents. Methods: The study employed a phenomenological qualitative approach. The participants included 26 male and female high school students aged 16 to 18 going to schools in Tehran province, who were selected through criterion purposive sampling method. To collect data, semi-structured interviews were utilized. In order to analyze the data, thematic analysis (TA) technique was used. Findings: The findings demonstrated that the consequences of death awareness in adolescentschr('39') lives can be categorized in five main dimensions: motivation and goals, feelings, behaviors, interpersonal and social, and worldview. Conclusions: Death-consciousness can overshadow various aspects of a teenagerchr('39')s life, and is therefore an important and fundamental issue. Each of these themes shows the effects of death awareness on different aspects of adolescence life and indicate that the remembrance of death can affect various dimensions of adolescent life in different ways. It can also change the adolescentschr('39') life style and their attitudes towards themselves and the world. In other words, to adolescents, who are at the beginning of planning their future lives, death awareness can act as a beacon and help shape their future plans and paths.