ArticleBMC medical education2026
Academic burden and coping among Generation Z Korean nursing students: a focus group study.
Article in BMC medical education, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTo explore nursing students' experiences of academic burden and their coping strategies to inform improvements in nursing education. Academic burden in nursing students is associated with decreased emotional well-being, reduced motivation, and difficulties in developing professional identity. These challenges may reflect characteristics often discussed in relation to contemporary students, such as a preference for autonomy and supportive learning environments, rather than being attributed to a specific generational group.
methodsA qualitative study utilizing focus group interviews and inductive content analysis. Twelve undergraduate nursing students from two universities in Seoul participated between March and April 2024. All had clinical experience and reported academic burden. Two semi-structured FGIs were conducted, audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using qualitative content analysis.
resultsFour main themes were identified: loss of agency within rigid academic structures, reflected in heavy workloads, peer comparison, and evaluation pressure that diminished self-efficacy and fostered emotional isolation; instability in professional identity during clinical training, exacerbated by unclear expectations and theory-practice gaps; emotional vulnerability shaped by comparison and suppression, leading to internalized distress; and efforts to sustain oneself through coping and relational support, including self-regulation and support from peers and institutional resources.
conclusionAcademic burden should be recognized not only as an individual challenge but also as a structural issue in nursing education. Learning environments that support autonomy, relational connection, and emotional well-being may better address the needs identified in this study, which align with characteristics often associated with Generation Z, while remaining grounded in the actual experiences of participants.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.