The theory of accelerating change, underwritten in the Martha E. Rogers nursing model, was the theoretic basis for this descriptive study which examined differences in death anxiety and self-esteem--both of which were viewed as manifestations of the human field--in AIDS-diagnosed and healthy children.

Participants comprised 70 children who were Black and Hispanic, four, five and six years of age, evenly divided into two groups--35 AIDS-diagnosed and 35 healthy children. Children were English-speaking and scored at the age-appropriate range on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test--Revised (Dunn & Dunn, 1981).

Death anxiety, defined as "a point of view of dying, a part of the fabric of being the child develops before a precise conceptual formulation, that is, it exists prior to and outside of language and image", was measured by the researcher-developed and unpublished manuscript (Ireland, 1993) Thematic Instrument to Measure Death Anxiety in Children (alpha =.86). Self-esteem, defined as "the child's sense of adequacy in terms of perceived competence and social acceptance", was measured by Harter & Pike's (1983) Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance--Version I (alpha =.84), version II (alpha =.80).

Data were analyzed using SPSS Windows (1993). Results indicated that the two groups did not manifest significant differences in death anxiety F(1, 68) =.46, p =.50 and self-esteem F(1, 68) = 1.24, P =.27. Although the hypotheses that AIDS-diagnosed children would have lower death anxiety and higher self-esteem were not supported, the AIDS-diagnosed children were found equal to healthy peers on these two manifestations of the human field.