Occupational anxiety, workplace risk attitudes, and clinical learning safety climate among nursing students: a path analysis

Occupational anxiety may influence nursing students’ engagement with workplace risks and shape how they perceive safety within clinical learning environments. Understanding these relationships may help inform curricular and placement-based strategies that support both student learning and patient safety. This analytical cross-sectional study was conducted among 591 undergraduate nursing students at Gaziantep University, Türkiye, between April and June 2025.

Data were collected using the occupational anxiety scale for healthcare students (OAS-HS), the nurses’ attitudes toward workplace risks scale (NATWRS), and the safety climate questionnaire (SCQ). Internal consistency was high for the three total scales (Cronbach’s α = 0.94–0.97). Independent-samples t tests and one-way ANOVA with Bonferroni correction were used to examine group differences (Welch and Games–Howell procedures where variances were heterogeneous).

Path analysis was performed using AMOS 29.0 to model associations among occupational anxiety, attitudes toward workplace risks, and perceptions of the clinical learning safety climate. Participants reported moderate-to-high occupational anxiety (69.6 ± 17.3), generally positive attitudes toward workplace risks (144.5 ± 22.5), and moderately favorable perceptions of the clinical learning safety climate (71.9 ± 11.3). Occupational anxiety was significantly higher among female students, Turkish students, and those with a grade point average of 2.00 or above (all p