Objective To understand the mediating and moderating role of psychological coherence among intern nursing students between transition shock and learning burnout.

Methods A questionnaire survey was conducted among intern vocational college nursing students in tertiary hospitals in Anhui Province through the convenience sampling method, which included the general information questionnaire, Chinese version of the Transformation Impact Assessment Scale for Undergraduate Nursing Interns, Learning Burnout Scale for College Students and Sense of Coherence Scale. After the completion of the survey, the obtained data were statistically analyzed.

Results The total score of transition shock of 1345 nursing students was (46.76 ± 8.96) points, the total score of learning burnout was (59.51 ± 10.43) points, and the total score of sense of coherence was (58.02 ± 12.07) points. The proportions of those with no, mild, moderate and severe learning burnout were 21.41%, 17.10%, 31.30% and 30.19%, respectively. The transition shock was significantly positively correlated with learning burnout (r = 0.543, P ＜ 0.01), and significantly negatively correlated with sense of coherence (r = –0.550, P ＜ 0.01). The sense of coherence was significantly negatively correlated with learning burnout (r = –0.584, P ＜ 0.01). The sense of coherence played a partial mediating role in the relationship between transition shock and learning burnout, with a mediating effect value of 0.236, accounting for 41.48% of the total effect. The sense of coherence had a moderating effect between transition shock and learning burnout (β = 0.119, ∆R² = 0.014, P ＜ 0.01).

Conclusions The degree of learning burnout of vocational college nursing students during their internship in Anhui Province is at a medium level. Meanwhile, the sense of coherence plays a mediating and moderating role between transition shock and learning burnout. This suggests that nursing education and managers should pay attention to the sense of coherence of nursing students, alleviate their transition shock, and thereby reduce the learning burnout of intern nursing students.