Abstract:

Objective To investigate the explicit and implicit death attitudes among undergraduate nursing students and explore their relationships with the sense of meaning in life. Methods A convenience sampling method was adopted to recruit 211 undergraduate nursing students from a medical college in Beijing between March and May 2022 as the survey participants. The Death Attitude Profile-Revised（DAR-P） and the Chinese version of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire（C-MLQ） were utilized for the survey. Among them，58 students were conveniently selected to undergo the Single-Category Implicit Association Test（SC-IAT） to assess their implicit death attitudes. Results Among the various dimensions of explicit death attitudes of undergraduate nursing students，the natural acceptance dimension scored the highest，with a mean score of（4.11±0.60）. The implicit effect value of implicit death attitudes was（0.24±0.43），and the difference was statistically significant when compared to 0. A positive correlation was observed between the natural acceptance dimension of explicit death attitude and the sense of meaning in life（P<0.05），while a negative correlation was found between the escape acceptance dimension of explicit death attitude and the sense of meaning in life（P<0.05）. Besides，no significant correlations were identified between implicit death attitude and explicit death attitude，nor between implicit death attitude and the sense of meaning in life（P>0.05）. Conclusion Undergraduate nursing students generally exhibit a relatively positive explicit death attitude，whereas their implicit death attitude is negative and governed by an independent psychological mechanism. In future death education initiatives，it is essential to comprehensively consider both explicit and implicit death attitudes. When aiming to enhance the sense of meaning in life among undergraduate nursing students through interventions targeting their death attitudes，the focus should be on the proactive construction of explicit attitudes，while avoiding excessive “exposure to death” so as to mitigate the risk of psychological burnout.

Key words: Attitude towards death, Implicit attitudes, Explicit attitudes, Nursing undergraduates, Sense of life meaning