ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion
This article is part of the Research TopicLife Skills in School Health Promotion: Challenges and SolutionsView all 6 articles
Factors Influencing higher vocational nursing students' mental health during internships: a cross-sectional study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Binzhou Polytechnic, Binzhou, China
- 2Jiangsu College of Safety Technology, Xuzhou, China
- 3Gannan Medical University, Ganzhou, China
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Word count: 267 Background: Internship is an important transition stage for nursing students from school to clinical work. However, students often suffer from mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and stress during internship, which further affects the effect of internship and career choice. Aim: This study aims to explore the mental health problems of higher vocational nursing students and its influencing factors. Methods: This study used a cross-sectional design to investigate 432 nursing students during internship who were studying at Binzhou Polytechnic from May to June 2025. The general information questionnaire, General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) were used to collect data to understand the mental health status of higher vocational nursing interns and analyze the influence of different factors on mental health problems. Results: 24.7% of the nursing interns had depression problems, 26.5% had anxiety problems, and 22.8% felt great pressure. Binary logistic regression analysis showed that internship in a tertiary grade A hospital and male students were associated with an increased risk of psychological problems (OR > 1). However, often or sometimes feeling cared for during internship, liking for the nursing profession, thinking that the nursing profession was respected, and high self-efficacy were associated with reduced risk of psychological problems (OR < 1). Conclusions: Hospital, gender, liking for the nursing profession, thinking that the nursing profession was respected, feeling cared for during internship and self-efficacy were all significantly associated with the mental health of higher vocational nursing students during internship. These findings provide a basis for the development of targeted mental health interventions to help improve the mental health of nursing students.
Keywords: nursing students, Clinical internship, Mental Health, Influencing factors, psychological distress
Received: 07 Sep 2025; Accepted: 27 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Mao, He, Li and Gong. 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: Huping Gong, ghp15170092807@163.com
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