Abstract: Objective To explore the attitude toward death among medical students and analyze the correlative factors. Methods Students from different origin were asked to fill in a questionnaire, questions include students' basic information, their experience of contact with "death" and their attitude toward death. Use Chi square test and rank sum test to analyze the influencing factors. Results The attitude towards death among medical students correlates with age, major, religion, their experience near death, education/ training: people with religious beliefs are more willing to accept the fact of death(P<0.01), people with more open atmosphere to discuss about death at home are more willing to accept the fact of death(P<0.01) and talk it with others(P<0.01), and people with experience of death education or training are more hopefully to alleviate the pain in the process of death(P<0.01). Conclusion Medical students' attitude towards death is closely related to whether they had experience toward death or education about death. It suggested that we should and we could do education about death to medical students in China by presenting more death-contact opportunities to them.

Key words: Medical students, attitude towards death, influencing factors, life-and-death education