📄 social_science

The Power of Social Support: Strengthening Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy in Future Health Professionals

This cross-sectional study of 488 Iranian medical and allied health students reveals that while perceived social support generally correlates with entrepreneurial self-efficacy, peer support is the only significant independent predictor after adjusting for demographics, suggesting that collaborative educational practices could effectively enhance entrepreneurial confidence in future health professionals.

Original authors: Zahra Dorri, NaserTalebzadeh Sarvestani, Masoumeh Hoseini, Pegah Abdollahzadeh, Fatemeh Khosrojerdi, Razieh Zahedi

Published 2026-08-03

📖 5 min read🧠 Deep dive

CC BY 4.0

Original authors: Zahra Dorri, NaserTalebzadeh Sarvestani, Masoumeh Hoseini, Pegah Abdollahzadeh, Fatemeh Khosrojerdi, Razieh Zahedi

Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ✨ This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer

Imagine you are trying to build a rocket ship. You have the blueprints, the metal, and the fuel, but you're standing on the launchpad wondering, "Can I actually do this?" In the world of science and medicine, that feeling of "Can I do this?" is called entrepreneurial self-efficacy. It's not about being a business genius; it's simply the confidence a person has that they can solve problems, spot new opportunities, and launch their own ideas to fix things in the healthcare system.

Now, think about who helps you feel brave enough to build that rocket. Is it your parents? Your teachers? Or maybe the friends you hang out with in the cafeteria? This is where social support comes in. It's the invisible safety net of encouragement, advice, and belief that others give you. Scientists have long known that having a support system helps people feel more confident, but they've mostly studied this with business or engineering students. They haven't really asked: "What about the future doctors and nurses? Who gives them the confidence to innovate?" This question matters because the healthcare world is changing fast. It needs future professionals who aren't just good at treating patients, but are also brave enough to invent new ways to treat them.

The Mission: Who Gives the Future Doctors Their Confidence?

A team of researchers from Jahrom University of Medical Sciences in Iran decided to investigate this very question. They wanted to see if the "cheerleaders" in a medical student's life—specifically their family, their friends (peers), and their romantic partners or mentors (significant others)—actually boost their confidence to be entrepreneurs.

They gathered 488 medical and allied health students (including future doctors, nurses, and lab technicians) and asked them two big questions:

How much social support do you feel you have?
How confident are you in your ability to start a new health project or solve a tough problem?

They used special, trusted questionnaires to measure these feelings, making sure to count every type of support separately so they could see which one really mattered.

The Big Discovery: The Power of the Squad

Here is the twist the researchers found: It's not your family who gives you the biggest confidence boost for entrepreneurship; it's your friends.

When the researchers looked at the raw numbers, it seemed like family support was important. But once they did the math to separate the different types of support from each other (like untangling a knot of headphones), a clear picture emerged. Peer support—the encouragement and collaboration you get from your fellow students—was the only type of social support that independently predicted higher entrepreneurial confidence.

The Friends Factor: Students who felt supported by their peers had significantly higher confidence scores. The data showed that for every little bit more peer support a student felt, their entrepreneurial confidence went up.
The Family Factor: Surprisingly, even though students felt loved and supported by their families, this didn't directly translate into feeling more confident about starting a business or innovating in healthcare once the other factors were accounted for.
The "Significant Other" Factor: Support from partners or mentors also didn't show a direct link to higher confidence in this specific group.

The study also found a gender gap. Male students reported significantly higher entrepreneurial confidence than female students (with a difference of about 5.68 points on their confidence scale). The researchers suggest this might be because boys often have more chances to see role models or try out these roles, rather than because they are naturally better at it.

What They Were Confident About (and What They Didn't Find)

The researchers were very careful to say what they didn't find, too. They explicitly ruled out the idea that family support is the main driver of entrepreneurial confidence for these students. While family is great for emotional support, it doesn't seem to be the magic key for business confidence in this context.

They also looked at what the students felt confident about. The students were most confident in planning (figuring out the steps to do something) but least confident in finances (handling money and budgets). This makes sense: medical school teaches you how to plan a treatment, but it rarely teaches you how to run a business bank account.

How Sure Are We?

The researchers are confident that there is a real link between peer support and entrepreneurial confidence, but they are careful not to say it's a "magic cure." Because they asked everyone these questions at the same time (a snapshot in time), they can't prove that peer support causes the confidence. They can only say they go hand-in-hand. It's like seeing that people who wear red shirts often win races; it doesn't mean the shirt makes them run faster, but it does suggest a strong connection.

The study also admits that peer support isn't the only thing that matters. The math showed that peer support and gender only explained about 13.7% of the differences in confidence. This means there are many other hidden factors—like past experiences, personality, or specific classes—that also play a huge role.

The Takeaway for the Future

So, what does this mean for the next generation of doctors and nurses? The researchers suggest that if universities want to create more confident, innovative healthcare leaders, they should stop relying solely on lectures or family encouragement. Instead, they should build peer-powered environments.

Imagine a classroom where students work in teams to solve fake health crises, where they critique each other's ideas, and where they build projects together. According to this study, that kind of "squad" dynamic is the secret sauce for building the confidence needed to change the world of healthcare. It's not about waiting for a parent to say, "You can do it!" It's about a friend saying, "Let's figure this out together," and that shared journey building the courage to launch something new.

Technical Summary: The Power of Social Support in Strengthening Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy

Problem Statement and Context
The global healthcare landscape is undergoing significant transformation driven by technological advancement, demographic shifts, and rising costs, necessitating that health professionals possess not only clinical expertise but also entrepreneurial competencies such as innovation, leadership, and opportunity recognition. While Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (ESE)—an individual's confidence in performing entrepreneurial roles—is a critical cognitive antecedent to entrepreneurial behavior, there is a scarcity of research examining its relationship with perceived social support specifically within medical and allied health education.

Existing literature presents three primary limitations: (1) a focus on business, engineering, or management students rather than healthcare students; (2) an emphasis on entrepreneurial intention rather than the more proximal construct of self-efficacy; and (3) a lack of multivariable analyses that simultaneously examine the independent effects of different support sources (family, peers, and significant others) while controlling for confounders. Furthermore, there is a paucity of evidence from low- and middle-income countries, particularly within the collectivist cultural context of the Middle East, where social dynamics may influence entrepreneurial beliefs differently than in Western settings.

Methodology
This study employed an analytical cross-sectional design conducted between January and June 2025 at Jahrom University of Medical Sciences in Iran. The target population included undergraduate, postgraduate, and general medical students.

Sampling: A proportional quota sampling technique was used to ensure representation across gender, academic discipline, and educational level, followed by convenience sampling within quotas. The final sample consisted of 488 students.
Instruments: Data were collected via anonymous, self-administered paper questionnaires using validated Persian versions of:
- Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy Scale (McGee et al., 2009): A 22-item instrument measuring five dimensions (searching, planning, marshaling, implementation with personnel, and implementation with financial resources) on a 5-point Likert scale.
- Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS): A 12-item instrument assessing support from family, friends, and significant others on a 7-point Likert scale.
Data Analysis: Descriptive statistics were calculated for all variables. Missing data (ranging from 0.6% to 11.3%) were addressed using Multiple Imputation (MI) via Fully Conditional Specification (FCS) with Predictive Mean Matching (PMM), generating 20 imputed datasets pooled according to Rubin's rules. Bivariate relationships were analyzed using Pearson's correlation coefficients. A multivariable linear regression analysis (Enter method) was performed to determine independent associations, controlling for age, sex, marital status, educational attainment, field of study, residence, and familial history of self-employment. Sensitivity analysis was conducted using complete-case data to verify robustness.

Key Results

Descriptive Statistics: The mean score for Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (ESE) was 69.4 (SD ± 10.5), with "planning" yielding the highest mean (70.7) and "implementing with financial resources" the lowest (65.7). The mean score for Perceived Social Support was 72.8 (SD ± 15.9), with family support rated highest (76.1) and friend support lowest (66.6).
Correlation Analysis: ESE showed a positive, albeit small, correlation with overall perceived social support ( $r = 0.21, p < 0.01$ ). Weak positive associations were found between ESE and family support ( $r = 0.19$ ), friend support ( $r = 0.18$ ), and support from significant others ( $r = 0.14$ ).
Multivariable Regression: After adjusting for demographic variables and other support sources, only two factors remained independently associated with higher ESE:
1. Sex: Male students demonstrated significantly higher ESE than female students ( $B = 5.68, 95\% CI: 3.67–7.70, p < 0.001$ ).
2. Peer Support: Higher perceived support from friends was independently associated with higher ESE ( $B = 0.082, 95\% CI: 0.017–0.147, p = 0.014$ ).
- Notably, family support and support from significant others were not significantly associated with ESE in the adjusted model, suggesting their initial bivariate associations were explained by shared variance with peer support or other confounders.
Model Fit: The final model explained 13.7% of the variance in ESE ( $R^2 = 0.137$ ). Sensitivity analysis using complete cases yielded consistent results, confirming the robustness of the findings.

Key Contributions and Significance
The paper claims several specific contributions to the literature:

Differentiation of Support Sources: Unlike previous studies that often treat social support as a monolithic construct, this research isolates the independent effects of family, peer, and significant other support. It provides evidence that in the context of Iranian health professions education, peer support is the most impactful source for entrepreneurial confidence, whereas family and significant other support lose significance when controlling for other variables.
Contextual Relevance: The study addresses a gap in literature from collectivist, low-to-middle-income countries, challenging the direct transferability of Western findings to Iranian medical education.
Theoretical Application: The findings support the frameworks of Social Cognitive Theory and Social Capital Theory, suggesting that peer networks in educational environments provide critical informational, emotional, and instrumental resources that foster mastery experiences and social persuasion, thereby enhancing self-efficacy.
Educational Implications: The authors argue that the dominance of peer support suggests that educational strategies should prioritize collaborative learning, peer mentoring, and team-based clinical projects over traditional, isolated instruction to effectively build entrepreneurial confidence.

Limitations and Modest Claims
The authors maintain a modest tone regarding the study's scope and causal claims:

Causality: Due to the cross-sectional design, the study establishes associations rather than causal relationships.
Generalizability: The findings are limited to a single institution in Iran using a quota-based convenience sampling method, which restricts generalization to other cultural or educational settings.
Explanatory Power: The regression model explained only a small portion of the variance (13.7%), indicating that ESE is a multifaceted construct influenced by numerous unmeasured factors such as prior entrepreneurial experience, psychological capital, and institutional climate.
Bias: The reliance on self-report measures introduces the potential for social desirability and common method bias, although statistical tests suggested these were not major drivers of the results.

The paper concludes that while peer interaction is a promising, modifiable educational resource for enhancing entrepreneurial confidence, longitudinal and intervention studies are required to validate these associations and determine effective implementation strategies.