The main purposes of this study are: (1)to understand the fear of death and attitudes toward death of nursing students as well as related personal factors: and (2)to understand the coping responses and demands while they care for dying patients. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data and 91 fourth - year nursing students were selected from two classes in a five - year program nursing college in northern Taiwan. Descriptive statistics, t-test, and ANOVA were used to analyze the data. The results show that: (1)the most common response for attitudes toward death is "acceptance of death" and the lowest is "escape-oreinted attitudes", the most common response for fear of death is "fearing one's death" and the least is "fearing other people's death". (2)for the related factors, the study indicated that the respones of "fear of death and dying" on the extenal convert persons were significatly ligher than for internal persons, families' attitudes will affect nursing students' attitudes toward death (p<.05). (3)91.2% of nursing students are affected emotionally while caring dying patients and need surpport (54.9%) and knowledge about death. Based on these results, the following suggestions are recommended: understand the nursing students' fears of death and attitudes toward death, and provide death education course.