Objective: To investigate the status and the correlation between life attitude and death education requirement of nursing specialty students, and to provide evidence for the development of education curriculum. Methods: From March to June 2016, by convenience sampling, 233 nursing students of one of Nanjing Medical University were selected and investigated by using the life-attitude scale and death education requirement scale, and their correlation were analyzed. The statistical methods were used to analyze the impact of life attitude on the requirement of death education for status survey. Results: The total life attitude of the nursing students was 306.37±32.77, which was lower than that of undergraduate in Taiwan (322.10±40.20). There was a significant difference in the requirement of death education in the different grade nursing students, with the highest requirement of fourth grade nursing students (174.15±19.19). In addition to the “Ideal” in the all dimensions of life attitude, “life autonomy”, “love and care”, “existential sense”, “death attitude” and “life experience” were associated with the death education requirement, especially with “love and care” and “death attitude” being predictive factors. Conclusion: The total score of nursing life attitude was generally lower than that of Taiwan, and the education requirement of death was distributed according to the grade of nurses’ need. It is significant to improve the different dimensions of nursing’s life attitude, especially the ability of love and caring, and the cognitive attitude of death. And in turn, stimulating the initiative of the nursing students’ learning and completing the corresponding death education program is fundamental for the clinical work.