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The current research studied the impact of terrorism on university students through terrorism catastrophizing, perceived stress, and death anxiety. The study was based on cross-sectional research design. 430 university students (men =183, women = 247) from universities of Peshawar, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Multan, and Bahawalpur were recruited through purposive sampling. Terrorism Catastrophizing Scale (Sinclair & LoCicero, 2007), Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983) and Death Anxiety Scale (Goreja & Pervez, 2000) were used. Comparison was made among students regarding their gender and universities. Pearson correlation showed a high significant positive correlation between terrorism catastrophizing, perceived stress, and death anxiety. Results also indicated that both male and female students felt high terrorism catastrophizing and high stress; female students were found to be more anxious of death than male students. Students of Peshawar University were found to be more anxious about death as compared to other university students. Stepwise multiple regressions revealed terrorism catastrophizing and perceived stress as significant predictors of death anxiety among university students.
Keywords: terrorism, catastrophizing, perceived stress, death anxiety
Disasters, whether natural or manmade, have become the most striking issue of the 21st century. Terrorism, which is considered to be a man-made disaster and is much difficult to define, is most smoldering issue of the media. At present, the world is encountering terrorism in different forms and scenarios. The phenomenon of terrorism has significantly changed the socio-economic and geopolitical set-up of the world after the event of 9/1 1(AIi, 2008).
In Pakistan, terrorism has emerged as a social evil and a major problem especially in the year of 2009. Pakistan is continuously confronting major terrorist attacks despite the fact that it is a country which is front line state in war against terrorism. These terrorist attacks have destroyed social fabric and economy and badly affected the political system of the country. Terrorist activities in the form of suicide bombings throughout Pakistan over the past few years have been a major issue. The scandalous technique adopted by terrorist groups has taken the lives of over 10,267 innocent people over the past five years, according to an estimate. During 2008, Pakistan was at the top of the countries with deaths by suicide bombing (Khan, 2009).
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