The Association of Self-efficacy with Self-care Behaviors, Anxiety, and Academic Motivation in Iranian Medical Sciences Students

Medical students are most susceptible to contracting stressful clinical phenomena and experiencing subsequent psychological consequences. The study aimed to investigate the association between self-efficacy, self-care, and anxiety with academic motivation among students enrolled at Shahroud University of Medical Sciences.

This cross-sectional study, conducted in 2022 immediately after the university opening during the COVID-19 pandemic,to investigate anxiety and self-care behaviors related to COVID-19, academic self-efficacy, and motivation among 339 students from diverse medical science disciplines. A multi-stage random sampling technique was employed to choose the participants. The data underwent analysis using one-way ANOVA, Chi-square test, and linear regression model. The significance level for all tests was 0.05.

The mean score of students' self-care behavior was 56.5±13.7, the mean academic self-efficacy was 106.5±17.6, and the mean academic motivation score was 98.5±13.0. The mean score of students' anxiety about COVID-19 was 6.9±6.9, suggesting a low level of anxiety. A total of 70 participants (20.6%) demonstrated good self-care behaviors against COVID-19, 316 (93.2%) reported reduced anxiety related to COVID-19, and 154 (45.4%) reported high levels of academic motivation. Only the self-care behaviors and academic motivation variables in the faculty and COVID-19 setting were shown to be substantially correlated with the sense of academic self-efficacy in the final model.

Medical students have been found to have significantly lower motivation and academic self-efficacy than students in other fields of study, so the need for identification of causes and implementation of intervention measures has been deemed necessary.