adequate training is not given and that sufficient work has not been done in this area. Forensic nursing should be given and spread throughout all nursing degree programs. Even though studies on forensic nursing have accelerated in our country in recent years, unfortunately forensic nursing is not defined legally yet. However, despite this fact, emergency nurses work as forensic nurses in forensic cases. Therefore, forensic cases are mostly assessed by emergency nurses who have not received special education (Yelken et al. 2004). Studies (Gökdoğan 2008; İlçe et al. 2010; Topçu 2015) show that the vast majority of nurses encounter forensic cases, their knowledge and practice of forensic cases is inadequate and they have educational needs that are related to forensic nursing. It is very important to start this education at the undergraduate level. In the literature, there are few studies which examined the knowledge and opinions of nursing students about forensic nursing. In Turkey, only two studies (Şentürk and Büyükaslan 2013; Kalayci et al. 2014) have reported that students’ knowledge of forensic nursing is inadequate. In these studies conducted in the field of forensic nursing, the knowledge of students about forensic cases and forensic nursing was carried out in different cities with different questions and with fewer sample groups. In a city with a high population, students are more likely to encounter forensic cases. During the training process, students are exposed to many forensic incidents by practicing in various hospitals. Therefore, it is thought that the study will be carried out in a city with more population and population, which will contribute to reveal the current situation. For this purpose, our study was conducted with Ankara as the capital of Turkey and with more sample groups. This study was conducted to determine the information needs and opinions of students related to forensic nursing, which is a new field of specialization in our country, to determine the educational needs related to the subject, and to draw attention to the topic. Methods Design The research was carried out as a descriptive study. Participants The study sample was 104 students who were in the final year of the 2015–2016 academic year during the spring semester at the Department of Nursing, the Faculty of Health Sciences of a state university in Ankara, Turkey. In total, 95 students who were accepted to participate in the survey were included. Data collection Data was collected via two questionnaire form that was developed by researchers parallel to the literature (Sunmaz et al. 2008; Sharma 2003; Pinar and Bahar 2011; Yelken et al. 2004). Totally it consisted of 21 questions. One of the data collection tools was a questionnaire (Form 1) (9 questions) developed to determine the sociodemographic characteristics of the nursing senior students, and a questionnaire (Form 2) (12 questions) to evaluate the opinions of the students about the forensic nursing. Form 1 is included the six question that were related to age, gender, mothers’ and fathers’ education level, mothers’ and fathers’ job the students’ socio-demographic variables consisted of multiple-choice questions about students’ sociodemographic characteristics, two questions were yes/ no questions about the presence of someone interested in forensics in their family and sought to determine whether they followed forensic medicine cases in the media, the other one questions about publications you follow in the media. Form 2 is included six questions were aimed at the tasks of forensic nurses, the fields in which they worked, forensic nursing subjects, examples of forensic cases and the education of forensic nursing, which were designed so that students could mark multiple choices. One openended question that was included was about the definition of forensic nursing. The five questions regarding students’ opinions about forensic nursing. One of them knowledge of forensic nursing, one question want to be a forensic nursing, the other one forensic nursing should be proffesion, forensic nursing education is need and the last one the cases in which they had encountered forensic cases were designed as yes/no questions. Procedures During the study’s implementation phase, information was first given to students about the research’s scope, and their written approvals were obtained. Then, a questionnaire was distributed to the students who had agreed to participate. After they completed the questionnaire form, these were collected by the researchers. Filling in the form took approximately 20 min. Topçu and Kazan Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences (2018) 8:16 Page 2 of 7 Ethical considerations The Research Ethics Committee’s approval was required for the work to be done; this was taken from Ankara Yildirim Beyazit Ethics Committee of Social Sciences and Humanities. Written permission was obtained from the institution at which the study was carried out. Students who agreed to participate in the study were notified of the study and then their written approval was obtained. Data analyses The data were transferred to the computer program by researchers using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 16.0. Number percentages and chi-square tests were used to evaluate the data. Results In the study, it was determined that the average age of the students was 22.2 ± 0.79,