Exploring the interconnections of loneliness, anxiety, and depression among nursing students: a network analysis approach.

Objective: Nursing students experience higher rates of anxiety and depression than students in other disciplines due to the demanding academic requirements and clinical training challenges. Loneliness and symptoms of anxiety and depression occur simultaneously; however, the specific interrelationships between these states remain inadequately investigated. This study aimed to utilize network analysis to examine the item-level reciprocal action between loneliness, anxiety, and depression among nursing students.

Methods: A total of 888 nursing students were assessed using the short-form UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS-6), the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item Questionnaire (GAD-7), and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) on loneliness, anxiety, and depression, respectively. Descriptive analyses were conducted using SPSS 26.0, whereas other statistical analytical procedures were performed using R software. The Gaussian graphical model was used to estimate network, and the Network Comparison Test was applied to compare differences in networks across gender and grades.

Results: The results indicated that 58.6% of nursing students exhibited varying degrees of loneliness. Network analysis revealed that loneliness formed a separate cluster with limited connections to anxiety and depression communities. The edges between PHQ3-PHQ4 (insomnia or hypersomnia and fatigue), GAD1-GAD2 (feeling anxious and excessive worrying), ULS1-ULS2 (lonely and no one) showed the strongest positive edges within their communities, respectively. And the strongest inter-community edges were observed between GAD5-PHQ8 (fidgety-retardation), ULS6-PHQ4 (isolation-fatigue), and ULS1-GAD1 (lonely-feeling anxious). The centrality analysis identified GAD2 (excessive worrying), ULS6 (isolation), PHQ4 (fatigue), and PHQ2 (feeling down) as the most central node, indicating their significant influence on the overall network structure. Additionally, PHQ8 (retardation), PHQ2 (feeling down), GAD5 (fidgety), and GAD1(feeling anxious) played a crucial role as bridging symptoms that linked the three communities. In addition, there is no statistically significant difference in the network structure except strength of GAD3 (generalized anxiety) and GAD6 (irritable) between sexes.

Conclusions: This study highlights the high prevalence of loneliness among nursing students and its distinct yet limited connection to anxiety and depression, emphasizing its unique role as a standalone psychological construct. The central symptoms in the network and important bridge symptoms across different psychological communities highlight the complexity of mental health symptom networks. This underscores the importance of targeting central symptoms for domain-specific interventions and addressing bridge symptoms to mitigate comorbidities across psychological conditions among nursing students.