Relationships among death anxiety, communication apprehension with the dying, and empathy in those seeking occupations as nurses and physicians.

In light of the modern phenomenon of increased institutionalized deaths occurring in hospitals and in nursing homes, much of recent death attitude research has focused on health professionals. The present study explored possible relationships among measures of death anxiety, communication apprehension with the dying, and empathy in undergraduate nursing, premedical, and control subjects. Main effects for year in school indicated that seniors scored lower than freshmen on communication apprehension with the dying. The multivariate effects for field of study were also significant, with univariate results indicating that nursing students scored lower than controls on communication apprehension with the dying.