Analysis and Countermeasures of Medical Student' s Cognition of Death / 中国医学伦理学

ABSTRACT

Objective: To understand the cognition of death among medical students and put forward some countermeasures .Methods:Stratified sampling was used to select 730 medical students in Fujian .A self -de-signed cognition of death questionnaire and Fear of Death Scale ( FODS) were adopted to conduct the survey .Re-sultsThe general cognition of death among medical students was normal (84.8%).Fear of death, either towards themselves or their families , was significantly different in participants ' gender (χ2 =29 .552 , P<0 .001 ) , major (χ2 =6.343,P=0.042), and grade (χ2 =13.979, P=0.030).Thinking of death towards themselves was signif-icantly different in participants' living places (χ2 =10.110, P=0.006), bereavement experience (χ2 =7.353, P=0 .025 ) , religion (χ2 =16 .307 , P=0 .003 ) .Meanwhile , statistical significances were found in the thinking of death towards their families among different bereavement experience (χ2 =14.962, P=0.001) and religion (χ2 =12.359, P=0.015).Grade and religion greatly affected the attitudes towards death of families , while bereavement experience and grade had the great impact on the attitudes towards death of respondent themselves .In the fear of death for participant themselves and their families , gender made the biggest difference .Conclusion: Medical students have a high level of death anxiety .Medical universities and colleges should strengthen death education in medical students and improve its course system in the future .