Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on health sciences students' individual entrepreneurship perception

Introduction: Many societal changes threaten the sustainability of health systems. Entrepreneurs play a significant role in creating sustainable innovations necessary for development and structural change. This study aimed to evaluate how university students studying health sciences perceive individual entrepreneurship during the COVID-19 pandemic and to explore the impact of COVID-19-related hopelessness on their perception of entrepreneurship. Methods: Six hundred eighty-one undergraduate students from the faculty of health sciences in Turkiye, participated in the study. The Individual Entrepreneurship Perception Scale and Beck Hopelessness Scale were used to collect data. Results: The results revealed that the students' perception of individual entrepreneurship was high, while their hopelessness levels were moderate. In addition, a moderate negative relationship was found between the students' hopelessness levels and their perception of individual entrepreneurship. The regression analysis showed that the students' hopelessness levels and subdimensions (hope, loss of motivation, and future expectation) accounted for 26.3% of the total variance in individual entrepreneurship perception. Increased hopelessness regarding the sub-dimensions of hope, loss of motivation, and expectations for the future decreased their individual entrepreneurship perceptions. Conclusions: These findings suggest that individual entrepreneurship perception among health sciences students could be negatively impacted during extraordinary periods related to health crises like pandemics. Developing hope, motivation, and expectations for the future is crucial to enhancing individual entrepreneurship perception among health sciences students.