Subjective rather than objective patient death experiences link with physicians' and nurses' professional quality of life.

"Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participateAll the methods included in this study are in accordance with the declaration of Helsinki. As no new data were collected in the present study, no ethical approval was required. First author of the present study was the primary investigator and owner of the data in the original project, which was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of Hong Kong (reference number: EA1807022). All participants read the entire consent letter on the first page of the online questionnaire and gave their informed consent by clicking “I will participate in the research” before formally entering the survey. Consent for publicationNot applicable. Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interests. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests."

"Funding This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32200898), and Southeast University Zhishan Young Scholars Support Program."