Psychedelics can produce positive changes in attitudes about death and dying — and may be a way to help ease anxiety and depression toward the end of life, new research suggests.

In a retrospective study of more than 3000 participants, near-death experiences occurring naturally or via a psychedelic drug had a “remarkably” similar effect on attitudes about death and dying, with most participants reporting less fear and anxiety around death.

“Individuals with existential anxiety and depression at end of life account for substantial suffering and significantly increased health care expenses from desperate and often futile seeking of intensive and expensive medical treatments,” co-investigator Roland Griffiths, PhD, Center for Psychedelics and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, told Medscape Medical News.

“The present findings, which show that both psychedelic and non-drug-occasioned experiences can produce positive and enduring changes in attitudes about death, suggest the importance of future prospective experimental and clinical observational studies to better understand mechanisms of such changes as well as their potential clinical utility in ameliorating suffering related to fear to death,” Griffiths said.

The results were published online August 24 in PLOS ONE.