Iran Biomed J. 2024 Dec 1;28(7):85.
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Loneliness is a crisis in adolescence and youth, especially among students. Students have a special place in thinking and creative human resources in every society; hence, providing for their mental health is crucial. Nowadays, medical students face more psychological problems and conflicts than in the past, causing problems such as absenteeism from class, disorder in logical thinking, and academic failure. The most crucial criterion for the effectiveness of educational systems is the appropriate academic performance of the learners. This is especially important for nursing students because, in their future careers, sufficient knowledge, high skills, and professional ethics have a special place. This study aimed to determine the relationship between the feeling of loneliness and the academic performance of nursing students.
METHODS AND MATERIALS: This analytical-cross-sectional study was conducted with the participation of 176 nursing students of Gonabad University of Medical Sciences in 1402. Sampling was done by stratified method. The data collection tool was a demographic information questionnaire, a grade point average to measure academic performance, and Russell’s loneliness questionnaire. After obtaining informed consent and according to the inclusion criteria, the questionnaires were provided online to the nursing students and were completed. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 22 software, descriptive statistics, and Pearson’s correlation coefficient test.
RESULTS: The results showed that an equal number of women and men formed the research units (50%). The mean and standard deviation of the loneliness score was 49.04 ± 6.48, and academic performance (average) was 16.8 ± 1.32. No statistically significant relationship was found between loneliness and academic performance (p = 0.71). The present study’s Pearson correlation coefficient was equal to -0.027 (r = -0.027).
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION: This study demonstrate no significant relationship between loneliness and academic performance in nursing students, i.e., these two variables do not influence each other. In fact, it cannot be stated that the presence or absence of feeling lonely changes academic performance, a subject that needs further investigation.
PMID:39673168
