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Associations Among Depression, Self-Compassion, and Learning Burnout in Nursing Students: A Three-Wave Longitudinal
Qinghua Wang1, Xiaohong Cao2, Tianjiao Du3
1Institute of Foreign Languages, China Medical University, No. 77 Puhe Road, Shenyang North New Area, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, People's Republic of China, cmu.edu.cn.
Background:
Previous cross-sectional research shows that there were significant associations between depression, self-compassion, and learning burnout. However, no longitudinal research has explored the temporal associations among depression, self-compassion, and learning burnout in nursing students. The present study aimed to examine the temporal relationships among depression, self-compassion, and learning burnout and to explore the longitudinal mediating role of self-compassion between depression and learning burnout among nursing students.
Methods:
This is a three-wave longitudinal study. Undergraduate nursing students (N = 494) from three medical universities in China participated in this study and completed online questionnaires three times in October of 2019, 2020, and 2021, respectively. Online questionnaires, including the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) depression subscale, the 26-item Self-Compassion Scale (SCS), the learning burnout scale (LBS), and demographic information. IBM SPSS (version 22.0) and Mplus (version 8.3) were used for data analyses.
Results:
Among nursing students, self-compassion unidirectionally and negatively predicted depression, while learning burnout unidirectionally and positively predicted depression. The temporal relationship between self-compassion and learning burnout was reciprocal and negative. Self-compassion longitudinally mediated the relationship between learning burnout and depression.
Conclusion:
Learning burnout may lead to depression among nursing students. As a psychological resource, self-compassion longitudinally negatively predicted both learning burnout and depression and could buffer the negative impact of learning burnout on depression. It is recommended that nursing educators identify and implement effective interventions to enhance nursing students' self-compassion to help them combat learning burnout and depression.
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