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Prevalence of imposter syndrome and its association with depression, stress, and anxiety among nursing students: a multi-center cross-sectional study

A. El-Ashry, Samah Mohamed Taha, E. S. A. Elhay, Heba Abdel-Hamid Hammad, M. Khedr, M. El-Sayed

BMC Nursing, 2024

43 citations

Abstract

To examine the prevalence of imposter syndrome among nursing students and its association with depression, stress, and anxiety. A multi-center cross-sectional survey was conducted with 1572 nursing students randomly selected from three universities across Egypt. The study was conducted over 3 months, from the beginning of January to the end of March, during the academic year 2023/2024. Clance Imposter Phenomenon Scale and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 were used for data collection. A significant proportion of nursing students experience moderate to highly severe levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. Around a quarter of students had moderate depression, 22.6% had moderate anxiety, and 14.9% had severe anxiety. Additionally, 13.3% of participants experienced severe stress, with only 3.8% experiencing highly severe stress. The study also found that 46.3% of students experienced moderate imposter syndrome, with 33% having frequent imposter levels and 6.2% scoring intense imposter on the scale. Furthermore, imposter syndrome was positively correlated with depression, anxiety, and stress, and the total score of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (r = 0.639, p < 0.001). The stepwise linear regression analysis explained that 45.0% of the variance in students' depression, anxiety, and stress was due to imposter syndrome and other sociodemographic covariates. This study highlighted the relationship between imposter syndrome, depression, anxiety, and stress among nursing…

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