ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Healthcare Professions Education
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1635755
This article is part of the Research TopicIntegrating Behavioral Neuroscience and Educational Psychology in Healthcare TrainingView all articles
The mediating role of feedback-seeking behavior in the relationship between self-efficacy and transition shock of nursing interns: a cross-sectional study
Provisionally accepted
- 1First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China
- 2The Oncology Hospital affiliated to Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University, Changsha, China
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Background: Transition shock commonly occurs as nursing interns move from student roles to professional practice, leading to confusion, uncertainty, and a lack of clarity in their psychological, physiological, knowledge and skills development. Aim: This study aims to investigate the status of transition shock among Chinese nursing interns and explore the mediating role of feedback-seeking behavior in the relationship between self-efficacy and transition shock. Methods: This is a cross-sectional survey study following the STROBE guidelines. A convenience sample of 450 nursing interns were surveyed from February to March 2025. Participants completed a questionnaire that included socio-demographic information, Transition Shock Scale, General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES), and Feedback-Seeking Behavior Scale. The Bootstrap method was applied to assess the mediating effects. Results: The mean ± SD for transition shock among nursing interns was 59.28 ± 4.53. Factors influencing transition shock included gender, reasons for choosing nursing, physical health status, enjoyment of the nursing major, class leadership roles, only-child status, and parental education levels. Self-efficacy (r = -0.651, p < 0.001) and feedback-seeking behavior (r = -0.711, p < 0.001) were negatively correlated with transition shock. Feedback-seeking behavior was found to mediate the relationship between self-efficacy and transition shock (indirect effect = -0.585, 95% CI: - 0.766 to -0.389), accounting for 66.1% of the total effect. Conclusion: Feedback-seeking behavior is the mediating variable between self-efficacy and transition shock of nursing interns. These insights provide evidence-based strategies for targeted interventions aimed at alleviating transition shock among nursing interns.
Keywords: self-efficacy, Nursing interns, feedback-seeking behavior, Transition shock, Cross-sectional study
Received: 27 May 2025; Accepted: 20 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Qin, Liang, Xue, Tang, Ban and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yanru Qin, yanruqin2025@126.com
Yongyi Chen, yongyichen2025@163.com
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