Introduction : Anxiety is highly prevalent among health-sciences students, yet the relative strength of its sociodemographic, social-contextual, and psychological correlates is rarely examined within a single sample. This cross-sectional study examined the associations of these domains with anxiety in Romanian medical and nursing students within an integrated biopsychosocial framework. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted with 483 first- to third-year Medicine and Nursing students at the “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galați. Anxiety was measured with the HADS-A. Predictors included sociodemographics, lifestyle variables, the Big Five, Rosenberg Self-Esteem, WHO-5 Wellbeing, and a procrastination scale. Missing data were addressed via multiple imputation. Analyses included pooled correlations, group comparisons, principal component analysis with Promax rotation, hierarchical regression, bootstrapped mediation, and logistic regression. Results: Among students with observed scores, 40.8% screened positive for elevated anxiety (HADS-A ≥ 8; 43.0% after imputation). Sociodemographic and lifestyle variables showed small associations that were not statistically significant after adjustment. A principal component combining wellbeing, self-esteem, and conscientiousness with low procrastination and neuroticism showed the strongest association with anxiety across all models. In an exploratory analysis, the procrastination–anxiety association was largely accounted for by wellbeing. Discussion: Within the variables measured, psychological characteristics were more strongly associated with anxiety than sociodemographic or lifestyle factors. Conclusions: Self-regulation and wellbeing merit attention as potential targets for future longitudinal and intervention research in health-sciences students.

Background: Anxiety is common among health science students, but the Balkan region is underrepresented in student mental health research and no regional synthesis exists. This systematic review and meta-analysis estimated the pooled prevalence of anxiety among medical, dental and nursing students in selected Balkan countries. Methods: Following PRISMA 2020 and a PROSPERO registration (CRD420261332221), PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched for English-language observational studies in eleven Balkan countries that assessed anxiety with a validated instrument. Two reviewers independently screened studies, extracted data and appraised quality (JBI). Prevalence was pooled with a DerSimonian-Laird random-effects model after Freeman-Tukey transformation, with prediction intervals and exploratory subgroup and sensitivity analyses. Results: Nine cross-sectional studies (N = 5177) from Croatia, Romania, Greece, Kosovo and Serbia were included. The pooled prevalence of anxiety at or above moderate severity was 27.5% (95% CI: 20.2–35.5%), with very high heterogeneity (I² = 97.1%; 95% prediction interval 5.3–58.6%). Leave-one-out analyses (26.0–29.4%) and alternative estimators (26.9–27.5%) gave similar estimates. Subgroup analyses were exploratory. Conclusions: The pooled prevalence is an average across heterogeneous studies, not a regional benchmark. The evidence is limited to English-language studies from five of eleven countries, and the findings are preliminary. Harmonised primary research is needed.