The Effect of Health-Related Quality of Life on Academic Success in Nursing Students: The Mediating Role of Academic Burnout and Academic Motivation

Abstract Background Identifying the key factors that affect academic success in nursing students, including health-related quality of life, academic burnout, and academic motivation has been to date of utmost importance. In this sense, the present study aimed to investigate the effect of health-related quality of life on academic success, as mediated by academic burnout and academic motivation. Methods This cross-sectional study was fulfilled upon recruiting 262 eligible nursing students, selected via convenience sampling. To collect the data regarding health-related quality of life, academic burnout, and academic motivation, the 12-item Short Form Health Survey, the Academic Motivation Scale, and Breso’s Academic Burnout Scale, were respectively administered. Moreover, the nursing program grade point average was considered as the measure of academic success. The data analysis was further performed using the SPSS Statistics (ver. 26) and Mplus (ver. 6.12) software packages at the significance level of 0.05. Results The study results showed that although health-related quality of life did not directly affect academic success, it can increase academic success by 0.005 through mediating intrinsic motivation. In addition health-related quality of life can increase academic success through mediating academic burnout and intrinsic motivation by 0.013 (p ≤ 0.05), which means academic burnout and intrinsic motivation significantly mediates the path from the health-related quality of life to academic success. Conclusions In accordance with the study results, nursing education planners and instructors are recommended to develop and implement proper measures to enhance academic success in nursing students, and then promote their health-related quality of life and academic motivation, thereby reducing academic burnout.