ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1632556
The relationship between depression and academic burnout among undergraduate students majoring in eldercare services: a moderated mediation model
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shenyang Medical College, Shenyang, China
- 2Kunming Medical University, Kunming, Yunnan, China, Yunnan, China
- 3Anshan Normal University, Anshan, Liaoning, China, Liaoning, China
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Objective: To explore the relationship between depression, self-efficacy, academic burnout, and social support among undergraduate students majoring in eldercare services in China. Method: A cross-sectional study was carried out among 957 students majoring in eldercare services across four provinces of China. The study employed questionnaires based on the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, General Self-Efficacy Scale, Learning Burnout Scale, and Perceived Social Support Scale. Using SPSS 22.0 for descriptive analysis and Pearson correlation analysis, and constructed a moderated mediation model using PROCESS. Results: The findings reveal that 26.92% of students suffer from academic burnout. Depression is significantly negatively correlated with self-efficacy, positively correlated with academic burnout. Self efficacy is negatively correlated with academic burnout. The results of the moderated mediation model showed that the mediating effect value of self-efficacy on depression and academic burnout was 0.139, accounting for 19.02% of the total effect. The interaction term between depression and social support has a negative effect on self-efficacy β=-0.203, and a positive effect on academic burnout β=0.106. Conclusion: There is a positive correlation between depression and academic burnout among undergraduate students majoring in eldercare services. Self efficacy partially mediates the relationship between depression and academic burnout, while social support plays a moderating role.
Keywords: depression1, self-efficacy2, academic burnout3, social support4, moderated mediation5
Received: 21 May 2025; Accepted: 28 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lin, Pan, He, Cheng, Wei and Zhao. 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: Li Zhao, Shenyang Medical College, Shenyang, China
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