Repressive Coping Style and Death Anxiety among Medical and Nursing School Students at a Medical College in Taiwan

Abstract

The purpose of the present research was to examine the relationship between a repressive coping style and death anxiety among undergraduate medical and nursing students. In total, 334 students were recruited to complete a set of questionnaires. It was found that medical students have a lower level of death anxiety and a higher tendency to use a repressive coping style than do nursing school students. Repressors were found to have a lower level of death anxiety than did the other groups. This effect is unique even after controlling for the effects of school major, gender, and other relevant factors. Therefore, a repressive coping style is a significant predictor of death anxiety. Due to the findings that male students tend to utilize a greater level of repression than do female students, just as medical students do compared to nursing school students, a gender and emotional expressiveness explanation was elaborated to account for this finding. The present study helps clarify that having low anxiety is not necessarily better than having high anxiety. We suggest that some educational initiatives be undertaken to release the relevant defense mechanisms so as to bring to light some reasonable and unsuppressed level of death anxiety among medical students. Practical implications of education focused on death in medical school and possible directions for future studies are discussed.