The Journal of Medical Education and Development

Introduction: One of the challenges that students faced during their education is academic procrastination. It means “delay in performing a task”. Since academic procrastination could effect on various aspects of students' personal and social life, by identifying related factors it may be limited. This study aimed to determined academic procrastination and related factors in Students of Guilan University of Medical Sciences in 2015.

Methods:  In this cross-sectional study, 459 students of all major programs of Guilan University of Medical Sciences were selected by stratified random sampling method. Data collection scales included three parts of demographic information, academic information and Procrastination Assessment Scale for Students (PASS) by Solomon and Rothblum. Data was analyzed with T- Test, ANOVA, multiple regressions by SPSS V. 20.

 Result: Most of students were female (72.7%), single (86%) and undergraduate (66.6%). Mean score of academic procrastination was 63.3±9.1 and most students (69.5%) had moderate procrastination. Academic procrastination had significant difference with gender (p=0.002) and academic level (p=0.03). Also in multiple regression models, gender, program of study  and academic level were main predictors of procrastination.  Females, dental students and postgraduate students had higher level of academic procrastination.

Conclusion: There is a moderate academic procrastination in students of Guilan University of Medical Sciences and its relationship with gender, program of study and academic level was observed.  Investigation on causes and appropriate strategies to reduce this behavior is recommended.