THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CAREER AWARENESS AND JOB-FINDING ANXIETY AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Şerife Güzel, Gizem Topçu

Background: Career awareness plays an important role in university students’ preparation for professional life, while job-finding anxiety may negatively affect their career-related decisions and expectations. This study aimed to examine the relationship between career awareness and job-finding anxiety among university students.

Methods: The population of the study consisted of 65,260 students enrolled at the central campus of Selçuk University during the 2025–2026 academic year. A sample of 1,000 students was determined using population-based sample size calculations. Data were collected using the Career Awareness Scale and the Employment Anxiety Scale. Both instruments demonstrated good validity and reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of 0.873 and 0.912, respectively. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 27.0.

Results: Age and grade level had limited effects on overall career awareness and job-finding anxiety. In contrast, gender, place of residence, family income, and field of study were associated with more pronounced differences in job-finding anxiety. A low but statistically significant negative correlation was found between career awareness and job-finding anxiety, indicating that higher career awareness was associated with lower job-finding anxiety.

Conclusions:The findings suggest that increasing career awareness may contribute to reducing job-finding anxiety among university students. Universities should implement structured career counseling and awareness programs early in students’ academic trajectories. Targeted support initiatives should also be developed for economically disadvantaged students and students in fields characterized by high employment uncertainty.

From Readiness to Institutionalization Intention: A TOE-Based Model of Digital-AYUSH Integration in Indian Healthcare

Objective: To test a Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) and institutional-theory-based model in which technological (TECH), organizational (ORG) and environmental (ENV) context predict Digital-AYUSH Integration Readiness (DAIR), which in turn predicts practitioners' and administrators' Behavioral Intention to Institutionalize Integration (BII), with staff digital literacy (SDL) as a boundary condition on the readiness-to-intention link.

Design: Cross-sectional survey using a 23-item, seven-point Likert instrument, analysed by ordinary least squares multiple regression with bootstrapped mediation and moderation analysis following a regression-based conditional process approach.

Setting: Primary Health Centres, Community Health Centres, District Hospitals and AYUSH-integrated hospitals across four southern Indian states (Telangana, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu), January–May 2026. Participants were 300 AYUSH practitioners, allopathic physicians and hospital/IT administrators (approximately 500 approached; 60% response rate), recruited via convenience sampling.

Main outcome measures: Composite scores for six constructs (TECH, ORG, ENV, DAIR, BII, SDL); internal-consistency reliability; explanatory variance (R², f²); regression coefficients; bootstrapped direct, indirect and total effects.

Results: All six constructs showed excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's α = .942–.953) and clean factor structure (KMO = .849; all items loaded ≥ .885 on their intended factor). Neither regression equation reached significance (DAIR: R² = .008, F(3,296) = 0.78, p = .507; BII: R² = .015, F(6,293) = 0.73, p = .629). TECH, ORG and ENV did not significantly predict DAIR; DAIR did not significantly predict BII; and SDL had no significant direct or moderating effect. Institutionalization intention differed significantly by facility type (F(3,296) = 2.95, p = .033), with District Hospital respondents reporting higher intention than AYUSH-Integrated Hospital respondents.

Conclusions: The conventional TOE readiness pathway did not explain individual-level institutionalization intention for Digital-AYUSH integration in this sample. Investing in digital infrastructure and organizational support alone may not be sufficient to secure staff buy-in; facility-type differences and unmeasured individual-level factors warrant further investigation.

Asia Pacific Journal of Health Management

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CAREER AWARENESS AND JOB-FINDING ANXIETY AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

From Readiness to Institutionalization Intention: A TOE-Based Model of Digital-AYUSH Integration in Indian Healthcare