The relationship between attachment type and attitude to death in adolescents with congenital heart disease, taking into account age differences

 
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Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the specifics of the attitude to death in adolescents with congenital heart disease and the study of the relationship between the attachment style to the parent and attitude to death aspects. Death anxiety provokes a deterioration in an individual’s mental state, but its severity depends on the attachment style. The results may help in the development of psychocorrection programs for maladaptive attitudes towards death in adolescents with congenital heart disease. Sample: 50 adolescents aged 11–17 years (M = 14.4, SD = 1,841) diagnosed with congenital heart disease and undergoing hospital treatment, divided into two age groups (11–14 years and 15–17 years). Methods: questionnaires “Death Attitude Profile-Revised” (K. A. Chistopolskaya), “Fear of Personal Death” (K. A. Chistopolskaya), “Metaphors of Personal Death” (T. A. Gavrilova), “Questionnaire on Attachment to Parents for Senior Schoolchildren” (M. V. Yaremchuk). The interrelationships between the attachment style and the attitude to death are revealed. Insecure attachment styles are positively correlated with a maladaptive attitude towards death, secure attachment is negatively correlated with an dysfunctional attitude towards death. The relationship between both positive and negative metaphorical attitudes towards death and the anxiety-ambivalent attachment style requires further study. There is an age-specific attitude to death: adolescents of senior school age see death as a neutral biological phenomenon and worry about the consequences of death for their personality. The results expand the understanding of the features of the attitude to death in adolescents with congenital heart disease and substantiate the expediency of working with attachment in the hospital and beyond.

General Information

Keywords: attitudes towards death, death anxiety, developmental psychology, thanatopsychology, clinical psychology, attachment styles, congenital heart disease

Journal rubric: Empirical and Experimental Research

Article type: scientific article

Received 24.01.2025

Accepted

Published

For citation: Rostovtseva, M.E. (2025). The relationship between attachment type and attitude to death in adolescents with congenital heart disease, taking into account age differences. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Psychology, 15(4), 649–666. (In Russ.). URL: https://psyjournals.ru/en/journals/vspu_psychology/archive/2025_n4/Rostovtseva (viewed: 03.03.2026)

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Information About the Authors

Marina E. Rostovtseva, Postgraduate Student, Sechenov First Moscow State Medical Univesity, Moscow, Russian Federation, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6466-3466, e-mail: rostovtseva.my@gmail.com

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