Factors influencing death anxiety of nursing students

This study aimed to identify factors influencing nursing students’death anxiety according to four separate sub-scales and levels of death anxiety. 162 nursing college students from two universities completed self-reported questionnaires that contained items on individual characteristics, self-esteem, satisfaction with life, depression and death anxiety. Data were analyzed using multiple linear regression and quantile regression. Self-esteem had a significant effect on anxiety of death and dying of self under 25 percentile, but anxiety of dying of others was significant at 75%. Especially experience of death of close others (50%, 75%), experience of death of patients in clinical setting (75%), frequency of the thought about death (10%, 25%, 75%, 90%) were significantly related to anxiety of self, but unrelated to death anxiety of self. The findings highlight that there were heterogeneous influencing factors among subscales and levels of death anxiety. Therefore intervention strategies for decreasing death anxiety for good EOL care should be tailed to subscales as well as levels of death anxiety of the nursing students.ope