Onychomycosis in KwaZulu-Natal: Clinical spectrum, risk factors and fungal susceptibility.

University dropout is increasingly understood as a complex, gradual, and psychologically mediated process rather than a discrete academic decision. Accordingly, contemporary research has shifted its focus toward early forms of disengagement that precede formal withdrawal and often remain invisible to institutional monitoring systems. Within this perspective, the concept of has gained relevance as a way of describing a pre-decisional phase marked by emotional exhaustion, reduced academic effort, avoidance of evaluative situations, and a progressive weakening of academic identification, despite continued enrollment (; ). Importantly, growing empirical evidence suggests that academic disengagement risk may represent an important vulnerability marker within students' educational experiences. Studies have shown that early psychological disengagement is associated with dropout intentions, lower academic performance, and poorer psychological well-being (; ; ). Consequently, contemporary research has increasingly focused on identifying psychological processes associated with disengagement vulnerability, particularly during the first year of higher education. From this standpoint, individual psychological resources that enable students to cope adaptively with academic and social demands have become central to contemporary dropout research. Among these resources, socio-affective skills have emerged as particularly salient within social–emotional learning and self-regulation frameworks. These skills encompass emotional awareness, empathy, assertive communication, cooperation, and adaptive interpersonal functioning. Recent evidence suggests that such competencies are systematically associated with higher levels of academic engagement, persistence, and adjustment in higher education contexts (; ).