Mediating effects of academic self-efficacy and smartphone addiction on the relationship between professional attitude and academic burnout in nursing students: A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Academic burnout is a common issue that interferes with the role shift from nursing students to qualified nurses and aggravates a shortage of workforce in global healthcare system. According to the Areas of Worklife Scale, developed by Maslach and Leiter, there are six dimensions that encompass the major antecedents of burnout. Therefore, it's well worth an exploration to understand academic burnout and its' underlying mechanism based on the theoretical instrument. Specifically, academic burnout, professional attitude, academic self-efficacy and smartphone addiction were selected as observation variables after widely literature review. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to examine academic burnout and figure out the relationships between academic burnout, professional attitude, academic self-efficacy and smartphone addiction among nursing students. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study. SETTING: The study was conducted in a nursing department in Anhui province in eastern China. PARTICIPANTS: 1445 nursing students. METHODS: Academic burnout, professional attitude, academic self-efficacy and smartphone addiction of participants were measured using online questionnaires with a supportive platform called "wenjuanxing". Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlations, and path analysis. RESULTS: Of all the participants, 44.26 % had a certain degree of academic burnout. Professional attitude and academic self-efficacy were negatively related to academic burnout. Smartphone addiction was positively associated with academic burnout. Meanwhile, academic self-efficacy and smartphone addiction partly mediated the effect of professional attitude on academic burnout. CONCLUSION: The compound strategies targeted at boosting positive professional attitude, fostering academic self-efficacy, and controlling the smartphone addiction are warranted for decreasing academic burnout.