Happiness levels of nursing students in relation to leisure time management: a multicenter study

A 2025 multicenter cross-sectional study found that nursing students who reported participating in leisure activities and allocating sufficient time for them had higher scores for both leisure time management and happiness. The study included 889 students from four universities in Türkiye, and its abstract reports a moderate positive association between the two measures: Pearson’s r was 0.389, p < 0.001. The findings show an association, not evidence that leisure time management caused greater happiness.

Researchers used an online survey and convenience sampling to recruit participants from a population of 2,097 nursing students, producing a response rate of 42.4%. Data were collected with a Student Information Form, the Free Time Management Scale and the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire. The investigators described the work as a cross-sectional, descriptive and correlational multicenter study. They used descriptive statistics, independent-samples t-tests, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation and hierarchical multiple regression to examine relationships in the sample.

According to the abstract, the mean Free Time Management Scale score was 3.56 ± 0.60, while the mean Oxford Happiness Questionnaire score was 3.68 ± 0.69. Students who participated in leisure activities and those who reported allocating sufficient time for leisure activities had significantly higher scores on both measures, with p-values below 0.05 for the reported comparisons. In the hierarchical regression, leisure time management remained positively associated with happiness after adjustment for control variables, with a standardized coefficient of β = 0.337 and p < 0.001. The final model accounted for 23.6% of the variance in happiness, and adding leisure time management increased the explained variance by 10.8 percentage points, ΔR² = 0.108, p < 0.001.

The study’s design limits the conclusions that can be drawn. Cross-sectional data cannot establish the temporal sequence between leisure time management and happiness or determine whether changes in one produce changes in the other. Convenience sampling, a 42.4% response rate and recruitment from only four universities also constrain how broadly the sample results may apply. The article’s authors characterized leisure time management as a potentially modifiable psychosocial resource, but causal effects and the effectiveness of any educational intervention cannot be established from these observational findings. They recommend longitudinal and experimental studies to clarify causal pathways. This report summarizes the supplied published abstract and does not independently assess the full study.

Subject of Research: Association between nursing students’ leisure time management and happiness in a four-university cross-sectional study

Article Title: Happiness levels of nursing students in relation to leisure time management: a multicenter study

Article References: Palloş, A., Özdemir Aydın, G., Yılmaz Coşkun, E., Özsaban, A., & Turan, N. (2026). Happiness levels of nursing students in relation to leisure time management: a multicenter study. BMC Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-026-05329-w

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12912-026-05329-w

Keywords: nursing students, leisure time management, happiness, psychological well-being, cross-sectional study, multicenter study, Türkiye, hierarchical regression, levels, nursing, students, relation