<![CDATA[Burnout among nursing professional students develops amid simultaneous academic and clinical practice demands, whereas self-compassion is thought to help students manage self-criticism, failure, and stress without prolonging distress.This cross-sectional analytical study involved 178 nursing professional students from five institutions in Jambi City. Self-compassion was measured using the 26-item Self-Compassion Scale (SCS), while burnout was assessed across three dimensions: exhaustion, cynicism, and efficacy. The primary analysis used Spearman’s correlation with 10,000-bootstrap-resampling confidence intervals and Bonferroni correction. The robustness of the findings was examined using Pearson’s correlation, an analysis restricted to students who were currently undertaking clinical practice, and exploratory linear regression with robust HC3 standard errors. Self-compassion was negatively correlated with exhaustion (ρ = −0.440; 95% CI, −0.560 to −0.305; p < 0.001) and cynicism (ρ = −0.473; 95% CI, −0.590 to −0.340; p < 0.001), and positively correlated with efficacy (ρ = 0.531; 95% CI, 0.410 to 0.636; p < 0.001). The strongest adjusted association remained with efficacy (β = 0.483), followed by cynicism (β = −0.433) and exhaustion (β = −0.284). Self-compassion was associated with a more favorable burnout profile, particularly through the preservation of efficacy. Student support should integrate the strengthening of self-regulation with improvements in clinical supervision, rotation workload, and the clinical learning environment.]]>
