Barriers or helpers to health: A systematic review and three-level meta-analytic evidence to the associations between procrastination and health

This study aims to clarify the overarching association between procrastination and health, as well as potential moderators, by conducting a systematic three-level meta-analysis. Following the PRISMA guidelines, a search across PubMed, Wiley, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science databases resulted in 66 studies with 32,131 participants. Results indicated a moderate positive correlation between procrastination and adverse health outcomes ( r = 0.2901, p < 0.001). Moderating effect was found for the procrastination subtype ( F (1,120) = 4.33, p = 0.04; r (Trait procrastination) = 0.27, p < 0.05; r (Domain-specific procrastination) = 0.32, p < 0.05). Such evidence not only sheds light on the exact association between procrastination and health but also highlights the potentially severer repercussions on domain-specific procrastinators.