The Attitude of Medical Students Toward Death: A Cross-Sectional Study in Rafsanjan

Attitude toward death is one of the most important factors that can influence the behavior related to the health profession. It is thought that physicians are afraid of death more than other groups of specialist. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the attitudes of the medical students of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences toward death.

This study is a cross-sectional study on 308 medical students of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences in the academic year of 2015. Attitudes were assessed through the questionnaire of death attitude profile-revised. The collected data were analyzed upon arrival to a computer with SPSS version 14, and descriptive and inferential statistical methods.

Attitude toward death was investigated in the 5 dimensions including the fear of death, death avoidance, approach acceptance, neutral acceptance, and escape acceptance. The results showed that the mean and standard deviations of fear of death, death avoidance, natural acceptance, approach acceptance, and escape acceptance were 3.76 ± 1.15, 3.54 ± 1.33, 5.14 ± 0.86, 4.66 ± 0.95, and 3.73 ± 1.25, respectively. It was found that people who have had the experience in dealing with death had less escape of the death attitude.

Totally, the results of this study demonstrated that the medical students had good attitudes through 5 dimensions of attitudes toward death. This is probably due to the religious beliefs and also dealing with dying patients. However, it is recommended that training programs should be provided for students in the field of attitudes toward death.