Abstract / Summary
AI is a key driver in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, significantly impacting healthcare. Nursing students’ acceptance and readiness to use AI are crucial for its successful integration. Understanding their perceptions is vital to prepare them for the intelligent healthcare era. To examine the mediation effect of AI anxiety between AI literacy and attitudes towards AI in college nursing students. A cross-sectional study. Nursing students from 10 universities across 7 provinces in China were recruited using convenience sampling from May to June 2025. The data collection tools included the Self-Designed Demographic Questionnaire, the General Attitudes Towards Artificial Intelligence Scale, the Artificial Intelligence Literacy Scale and the Artificial Intelligence Anxiety Scale. Data were collated and analyzed using SPSS Statistics 26.0 software and AMOS 29.0 software. The study found that nursing students possess moderate levels of AI literacy and AI anxiety, while generally maintaining positive attitudes towards AI. Mediation analysis indicated that AI anxiety statistically mediated the association between AI literacy and nursing students’ attitudes towards AI. AI literacy was significantly associated with nursing students’ attitudes towards AI, and AI anxiety statistically mediated this association. Therefore, nursing education may benefit from a dual-path approach, designed to simultaneously enhance cognitive competencies (AI literacy) and manage affective responses (AI anxiety).