Employment anxiety and its relationship with student nurse interns’ social support and job-seeking efficacy : a path analysis

Abstract

Purpose This study was intended to explore the relationship of employment anxiety with student nurse interns’ social support and job-seeking efficacy. Method: This was a cross-sectional study conducted from three tertiary hospitals in Hunan Province, China.Student nurse interns were recruited conveniently from March to May 2020, to complete a questionnaire, which included demographic information, occupation anxiety of college students, job-seeking efficacy of college students, and social support scale. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize sample characteristics, while Pearson's correlation analysis was used to explore the relationship specified in the purpose of this study. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to determine factors that influenced employment anxiety of student nurse interns, and then these factors were included in a path analysis model. Results A total of 560 student nurse interns were issued questionnaires but only 534 questionnaires were completed. Finally, 494 valid questionnaires were included for analysis. The average ± SD total score of employment anxiety was 71.49±17.28, where SD denotes standard deviation. Job-seeking efficacy, social support, priority factors for finding a job and having received employment training had both direct and indirect impact on employment anxiety. Social support and having received employment training imposed indirect influence on employment anxiety by the intermediate variable of job-seeking efficacy. Conclusion The results showed that student nurse interns had a higher level of employment anxiety, which was mostly influenced by job-seeking efficacy followed by social support, and then priority factors for finding a job. Therefore, these results may suggest that nurse educators and managers should consider in strengthening the provision of social and psychological support to student nurse interns, in order to improve their job-seeking efficacy so as to alleviate their employment anxiety.