Background <p>Pain management is one of the important issues of health care since it affects the individual physically, mentally and socially by hindering daily activities and it is affected by individual characteristics. To investigate the association of nursing students'pain experiences and knowledge levels with their clinical pain management attitudes.</p> Methods <p>This descriptive cross-sectional study included 245 nursing students. Research data were collected between February and June 2022 in the nursing department of the State University Health Science Faculty in Central Anatolia/Türkiye. Data were collected using a questionnaire form that comprised three sections, ‘Demographic and pain characteristics of students,’ ‘Pain knowledge of students,’ and ‘Clinical pain management attitudes.’</p> Results <p>The mean age of students was 20.6 ± 1.61 years, 65.7% of students were female and 58.8% resided in student dormitories. In general, students achieved a poor score (7.72 ± 3.01) on the pain knowledge test and an quite good score (21.55 ± 2.82) on the clinical pain management attitudes test. The results showed a positive and moderately significant relationship between students'socio-demographic and pain experiences and their knowledge and attitude scores. Female gender (knowledge:7.90 ± 3.01/attitude:21.85 ± 2.66), persistent pain at certain intervals (knowledge:8.06 ± 2.78/attitude:22.09 ± 2.34) and a family history of chronic disease (knowledge:7.80 ± 2.96) were associated with higher knowledge and attitude mean scores.</p> Conclusions <p>Experiencing pain at regular intervals, not wanting to perform activities requiring physical strength when in pain, and having family members treated for pain and chronic diseases positively influenced students’ pain knowledge and clinical pain management attitude scores, particularly among females. Furthermore, the knowledge scores increased for students who experienced pain due to chronic conditions and have experienced pain for longer periods and those who used pharmacological methods to manage pain. Attitude scores also increased for students who experienced pain due to stress, measured pain intensity, and used non-pharmacological methods to manage pain.</p> Graphical Abstract <p></p>