Death Anxiety and Psychological Resilience in Nursing Students: A Cross-Sectional and Correlational Study

This research explored the association between nursing students’ levels of death anxiety and psychological resilience. This study has a descriptive, cross-sectional, and correlational design. The research sample comprised 729 students enrolled in the nursing department at the Faculty of Health Sciences of a university situated in Türkiye. The “Descriptive Information Form”, the “Abdel-Khalek Death Anxiety Scale”, and the “Adult Psychological Resilience Scale” were used as data collection tools in the study. The psychological resilience levels of the students had significant positive correlations with their age and class year. There was a negative relationship between death anxiety and psychological resilience. It was concluded that if the psychological resilience of nursing students increases, their anxiety about death will decrease. Nursing students should be informed and supported by their educators about how to cope with the death anxiety they experience while working with terminal patients in clinical internships, what methods to use, and the ways they can use to strengthen their coping with the condition of patients with death anxiety.