the relationship between death obsession and death anxiety, with hope among the nursing students of urmia medical sciences university

the relationship between death obsession and death anxiety, with hope among the nursing students of urmia medical sciences university     shiekhy s [1] , issazadegan a [2] *, basharpour s [3] , maroei millan f [4]     received: 15 may , 2013 accepted: 21 jul , 2013  abstract  background & aims : death, an inevitable concept that associates with human being all the time, can cause significant anxiety in every individual. literature suggests that some medical professionals choose the field because of their own inner struggles with the notion of death. the present research aimed to examine the relationship between hope level with death obsession and death anxiety in nursing students.   materials & methods : 175 nursing students (101 females, 74 males) had been chosen through random stratified sampling method from medical sciences university nursing college students, and they were assessed by hope scale (hs), death obsessive scale (dos) and death anxiety scale (das). the data was analyzed using correlation and stepwise regression analysis method.  results: findings showed that there was significant negative relationship between hope and death rumination, death dominance, death idea repetition and death anxiety. also there was significant positive relationship between death anxiety with death rumination, death dominance and death idea repetition. the regression analysis showed that death anxiety and death idea repetition were able to predict 22/8 percent of the variance of hope between nursing students.  conclusion: the result of this research emphasizes the need for recognizing the role of hope in decreasing negative death attitude.  key words: death obsession, death anxiety, hope, nursing students     address: urmia valfajr 2 ave., faculty of literature and humanities, department of educational sciences, p.o.box: 57198-48375   tel: (+98) 441 3362008-12, 9144416641   email : [email protected]   [1] assistant professor,department of psychiatry, urmia university of medical sciences  [2] assistant professor of psychology and education , faculty of literature and humanities urmia university (corresponding author)  [3] assistant professor, department of psychology,university of mohaghegh ardabili  [4] ms in psychology