School of Nursing, Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu, 610500, China.
School of Acupuncture and Tuina, Chengdu University of Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, 611137, China.
BMC Med Educ. 2024 Apr 29;24(1):473. doi: 10.1186/s12909-024-05391-5.
Studies has suggested that receiving social support improves the professional identity of health professional students. According to the two-way social support theory, social support includes receiving social support and giving social support. However, the effect of the two-way social support on health professional students' professional identity has not been clarified yet.
To explore the mechanism of how two-way social support affects health professional students' professional identity, an observational, cross-sectional study was conducted among a convenience and cluster sample of 1449 health professional students from two medical schools in western China. Measures included a short version of the two-way social support scale, a health professional students' professional identity questionnaire, an achievement motivation scale, and a meaning in life scale. Data were analyzed by use of SPSS26.0 software and PROCESSv4.0 plug-in.
Receiving social support, giving social support, achievement motivation, meaning in life, and professional identity were positively correlated with each other. Receiving and giving social support not only directly predicted health professional students' professional identity, but also indirectly predicted health professional students' professional identity through the mediating roles of achievement motivation and meaning in life, and the chain mediating roles of achievement motivation and meaning in life, respectively. The effectiveness of predicting health professional students' professional identity varied among different types of two-way social support, which could be depicted as two-way social support > mainly giving social support > mainly receiving social support > low two-way social support.
In the medical education, the awareness and ability of health professional students to receive and give social support should be strengthened. More attention should be drawn on the chain mediating effect of achievement motivation and meaning in life between two-way social support and professional identity. The current results shed new light on exploring effective ways of improving health professional students' professional identity, which suggested that more attention should be paid to the positive effects of mainly giving social support and two-way social support rather than only on the effects of receiving social support.
研究表明，获得社会支持可以提高医学生的专业认同。根据双向社会支持理论，社会支持包括接受社会支持和给予社会支持。然而，双向社会支持对医学生专业认同的影响尚未明确。
为了探讨双向社会支持影响医学生专业认同的机制，采用便利整群抽样法，对中国西部两所医学院校的 1449 名医学生进行了横断面观察研究。测量工具包括双向社会支持量表简表、医学生专业认同问卷、成就动机量表和生活意义感量表。采用 SPSS26.0 软件和 PROCESSv4.0 插件进行数据分析。
接受社会支持、给予社会支持、成就动机、生活意义感和专业认同呈正相关。接受和给予社会支持不仅直接预测医学生的专业认同，还通过成就动机和生活意义感的中介作用，以及成就动机和生活意义感的链式中介作用间接预测医学生的专业认同，不同类型的双向社会支持对医学生专业认同的预测效果不同，表现为双向社会支持>主要给予社会支持>主要接受社会支持>低双向社会支持。
在医学教育中，应增强医学生接受和给予社会支持的意识和能力。应更加关注成就动机和生活意义感在双向社会支持与专业认同之间的链式中介作用。本研究结果为探索提高医学生专业认同的有效途径提供了新视角，提示在关注接受社会支持的同时，也应更加重视主要给予社会支持和双向社会支持的积极作用。
