Forensic biomechanics. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Lim, J., & Rehmar, S. (1997, March). Assessment of the trauma victim in the occupational setting. American Association of Occupational Health Nurses Journal, 45(3), 137–145. Retrieved from ProQuest online library Original Article 198 www.journalforensicnursing.com Volume 9 • Number 4 • October–December 2013 Copyright © 2013 International Association of Forensic Nurses. Unauthorize ORIGINA L AR TIC L E Open Access The opinions of senior nursing students about forensic nursing Emine Tuğba Topçu* and Ebru Erek Kazan Abstract Background: Today, the increasing number of crime and violence cases is defined as a universal health problem and nurses are the first healthcare personnel to encounter victims and offenders in hospitals, emergency units, intensive care, and services, even at policlinics or on-scene; therefore, it is important that nurses receive education in forensic nursing. Methods: This study was conducted as a descriptive study to determine the opinions of senior nursing students about forensic nursing. This study was conducted with 95 students and its data were collected via a questionnaire that contains descriptive features and opinions about students’ forensic nursing education. Results: The results revealed that 94.7% of students believed that both forensic nursing should be an area of specialization and that nurses should receive forensic nursing education, 42.1% of them stated that this education should be given as an elective course in school, and 40% of the students stated that they wanted to become a forensic nurse when they graduated. Conclusions: The findings suggest that senior nursing students’ knowledge about forensic nursing was insufficient and that they were untrained in this area. Keywords: Critical care, Education nursing, Forensic medicine, Forensic nursing, Nursing student Purpose This study was conducted as a descriptive study to determine the opinions of senior nursing students about forensic nursing. Background The modern world’s increasing number of crime and violence cases is defined as a universal health problem, and nurses are the first healthcare personnel to encounter victims and offenders in hospitals, emergency units, intensive care, services, even at policlinics or on-scene (Sunmaz et al. 2008; Sharma 2003). Nurses are generally the first healthcare personnel to observe patients, communicate with patients’ family/relatives, examine patients and request patients’ laboratory samples (Lynch 2006; Stevens 2004). However, evidence may be missed, lost, or destroyed during treatment and care, especially if emergency services nurses are unaware of such evidence and do not know the procedures and techniques for identifying, collecting, and keeping it. This situation can make forensic review difficult and may lead to courts failing or making wrong decisions (Özden and Yildirim 2009). These difficulties in recognizing offender or victims and increasing the number of victims of crimes who are referred to hospitals, the necessity of forensic nursing was revealed in the 1970s (Kent-Wilkinson 1999). In forensic nursing; nurses use the education they have taken in forensics to examine the victims of violence, trauma, other criminal cases and death events. In addition they use this education make scientific investigations of this cases (Kent-Wilkinson 1999). In this respect, forensic nursing is one of the newest avenues of forensic science. Forensic nurses can work in emergency services, suicide prevention centers, rape crisis centers, crime scene investigations, death investigations, prisons, prosecutors’ offices, law offices, forensic pathology laboratories, and at as expert witnesses in court (Lynch 2011; Pinar and Bahar 2011). * Correspondence: tgbtpc@hotmail.com; ettopcu@ybu.edu.tr Nursing Department, Yildirim Beyazit University Faculty of Health Sciences, Ankara, Turkey Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences © The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Topçu and Kazan Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences (2018) 8:16 DOI 10.1186/s41935-018-0045-y Studies on forensic nursing in Turkey started in 1995. In recent years, forensic nursing is offered as an elective course at the undergraduate level in few universities. These universities are only about 10% of the total nursing departments in Turkey. In Turkey, there are two universities have forensic nursing postgraduate program as well. Forensic nursing related sertificate courses are organized by Association of Forensic Scientists and some universities. Forensic nursing course; Definition of forensic medicine, history, definition of forensic nursing, duties and responsibilities, legal responsibilities of nurses, forensic case types, case study, autopsy concept, changes after death. The fact that the forensic nursing course takes place at a very small number of universities, yet it is not clear that the awareness of forensic nursing in Turkey has not been developed yet, that