by Yang Guo, Xixi Huang, Chengguo Guan, Ruonan Wang, Jie Yao, Luying Yang, Sha Li Background Clinical internship is critical for nursing students, but heavy workload and emotional demands increase the risk of work alienation. Traditional linear models fail to capture complex interrelationships among psychological factors.
Objective To apply psychological network analysis to explore the associative structure of work alienation in nursing interns, identifying central and bridge nodes to generate hypothesis‑generating intervention priorities. Methods A cross-sectional survey was employed.
Nursing interns from four tertiary hospitals in the Guanzhong region of Shaanxi Province were recruited via convenience sampling from January to August 2025. Data were collected using the Nurse Work Alienation Scale, Compassion Fatigue Scale, Moral Distress Scale, Ethical Sensitivity Questionnaire for Nursing Students, and NASA Task Load Index.
A total of 934 valid responses were obtained. A regularized partial correlation network model was estimated using the EBICglasso method (γ = 0.5).
Node strength and bridge strength were calculated, and stability was assessed via bootstrap.
PLOS ONE (Medicine) published a clinical update in Research Highlights on 17 Jun 2026.
The item focuses on Unveiling the psychological network of work alienation among nursing interns: A resource conservation perspective and network analysis.
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