Association Between Anxiety and Academic Procrastination among Chinese College Students: A Cross-sectional Study

Anxiety and academic procrastination are general among university students. And experiencing anxiety has been claimed to be related to academic procrastination. This study aims to conduct a cross-sectional investigation on the relationship in college students in China. A cross-sectional study was conducted in colleges and universities in China. Anxiety symptoms were assessed using the self-rating anxiety scale (SAS) and academic procrastination was determined by procrastination assessment scale for students (PASS). Potential confounders included age, gender, major, study program, birth place, and place of residence. Participants were divided into anxiety and non- anxiety group based on SAS score. Pearsons correlation test was used to explore association between anxiety and academic procrastination. We further performed the multivariate linear regression analysis to estimate the relationship before and after adjusting with potential confounders. A total of 523 students participated the survey and completed the questionnaire. Based on SAS threshold of 50, 258 (49.3%) subjects were classified as Non anxiety group (SAS score <50), 185 cases (35.4%) were divided into Mild anxiety group (SAS score 50-59), and 58 cases (11.1%) were divided into Moderate anxiety group (SAS score 60-69).The remaining 22 participants (4.2%) were in the Severe anxiety group (SAS score 70). Academic procrastination was positively associated with anxiety, additionally. This indicated that more anxious people went through more severe academic procrastination. The findings of this study provide evidence that anxiety is positively related to academic procrastination in college students in China. Higher levels of anxiety were linked to increased procrastination behaviors, particularly in academic tasks such as exam preparation and thesis writing.