To examine the moderating role of spirituality between hopelessness, spirituality, and suicidal ideation, 202 Iranian depressed adolescent inpatients completed measures of patient health, suicidal ideation, hopelessness, and core spiritual experience. Structural equation modelling indicated that depressed inpatients high in hopelessness, but also high in spirituality, had less suicidal ideation than others. These findings reinforce the importance of spirituality as a protective factor against hopelessness and suicidal ideation.
In this study, 398 Iranian cancer patients completed the 15-item Templer's Death Anxiety Scale (TDAS). Tests of internal consistency, principal components analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted to assess the internal consistency and factorial validity of the Persian TDAS. The construct reliability statistic and average variance extracted were also calculated to measure construct reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. Principal components analysis indicated a 3-component solution, which was generally supported in the confirmatory analysis. However, acceptable cutoffs for construct reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity were not fulfilled for the three subscales that were derived from the principal component analysis. This study demonstrated both the advantages and potential limitations of using the TDAS with Persian-speaking cancer patients.