ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Healthcare Professions Education
This article is part of the Research TopicIntegrating Behavioral Neuroscience and Educational Psychology in Healthcare TrainingView all 4 articles
Parenting Styles and Academic Burnout in Medical Students: A Moderated Mediation Model of Resilience and Stress
Provisionally accepted
- Nanjing medical university, Nanjing, China
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Introduction: Amidst the confluence of post-COVID educational shifts, China's New Healthcare Reform, and family structural changes driven by the Two-Child Policy , academic burnout (ABO) severely impacts medical students' health and performance. While parenting styles and resilience are recognized predictors, the dynamic interactions among parenting styles, resilience, and stress remain underexplored. This study, grounded in Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, investigates how parenting styles influence ABO through resilience, with stress as a moderator. Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 1,403 medical students from Eastern China was conducted in August 2025. Participants completed scales assessing parenting styles (s-EMBU), resilience (CD-RISC), stress (CPSS), and ABO (ABS). Data were analyzed using correlation, mediation (PROCESS Model 4), and moderated mediation analyses (PROCESS Model 14). Results: Contextual predictors of higher ABO included being a senior student, residing in a rural area, majoring in preventive medicine, and sleeping ≤7 hours (all p<0.05). Direct effects revealed that rejection (β=6.331, p<0.001) and overprotection parenting styles exacerbated ABO, whereas emotional warmth reduced ABO (β=-5.706, p<0.001). Mediation analysis indicated that resilience mediated 44.2% (rejection), 74.8% (emotional warmth), and 41.4% (overprotection) of the total effects of parenting styles on ABO, with all 95% confidence intervals (CIs) excluding zero. Additionally, moderation analysis demonstrated that stress significantly undermined the protective function of resilience: at high stress levels (+1 SD), resilience's protective influence on ABO was notably weaker (β=-0.239, 95% CI [-0.281, -0.198]), whereas under low stress conditions (-1 SD), resilience exerted a more robust reducing effect on ABO (β=-0.301, 95% CI [-0.343, -0.258]). Conclusion: Parenting styles influence ABO through resilience, a pathway dynamically moderated by stress. Precision interventions are proposed: resilience training for students with negative parenting histories and family resource repair for those from positive backgrounds under high stress. This framework synergizes resource optimization with resilience reinforcement to combat ABO.
Keywords: academic burnout1, parenting styles2, resilience3, stress4, medical students5, conservation of resources theory6
Received: 11 Sep 2025; Accepted: 28 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Teng, Shi, Xu and Zhu. 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: Jianjun Zhu, juanjunzhu7086@njmu.edu.cn
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