Abstract
BACKGROUND: Nursing students’ perceptions and attitudes towards death and end-of-life care are of critical importance for the quality of end-of-life care and the professional roles they will undertake in this regard in the future. This study aimed to examine nursing students’ perceptions of good death, their attitudes towards the principles of dignified death, euthanasia, and the relationship between them. METHODS: The sample of this cross-sectional descriptive-correlational study consisted of 259 nursing students in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year at two state universities in Türkiye during the 2023–2024 academic year. Data were collected with the “Personal Information Form,” “Good Death Scale,” “Assessment Scale of Attitudes toward the Principles of Dying with Dignity (ASAPDD)” and “Euthanasia Perception Scale.” RESULTS: Nursing students’ ASAPDD (49.21 ± 6.42) and Good Death Scale (57.18 ± 2.65) mean scores were above average. Regarding euthanasia, the positive (52.89 ± 16.87) and cultural (11.50 ± 2.90) sub-dimensions were above average, the negative sub-dimension was moderate (28.44 ± 8.47), and the penal (11.64 ± 5.17) and opportunistic (7.05 ± 2.84) sub-dimensions were below average. CONCLUSIONS: Nursing students generally approached dignified and good death positively and held supportive views on euthanasia, particularly in its positive and cultural dimensions. Nursing students did not support punitive approaches toward euthanasia and the idea of deriving personal profit from its implementation. As students’ attitudes toward the principles of dignified death increased, their perceptions of a good death and positive and cultural attitudes toward euthanasia also increased. As students’ perceptions of a good death increased, cultural attitudes also increased. These results highlight the importance of incorporating ethics and end-of-life care education into the nursing curriculum. CLINICAL TRIAL NUMBER: Not applicable. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-025-08435-6.