Burnout Levels of Medical Students in COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Burnout syndrome is a serious condition that is increasingly common in healthcare workers. There is growing interest and strong evidence that the foundations of physician burnout were laid during the years of medical education. It is important to be aware of and prevent burnout of medical students who are health care providers of the future. In this study, it was aimed to investigate burnout levels of preclinical medical students and associated factors. This cross-sectional study was carried out with 1009 volunteer preclinical medical students. The study data was collected through an online questionnaire using the sociodemographic information form and the Maslach Burnout Scale-Student Form. The average age of the students was 19.8±2.5 years, 52.2% were women, 61.9% had emotional exhaustion, 21.5% had depersonalization, and 53.5% had loss of competence. Grade I students' scores for emotional exhaustion and depersonalization were the lowest, while their competency scores were the highest. There was no significant association between age and burnout levels (p>0.05). Emotional exhaustion in women and depersonalization in men were significantly higher (p=0.025 and p=0.031, respectively). The frequency of exhaustion and depersonalization in students who did sports regularly was significantly lower and their competency scores were significantly higher (p<0.001, p=0.022, p<0.001, respectively). Burnout and depersonalization were significantly higher in students with pets (p=0.010, p=0.036, respectively). There was a significant association between academic achievement and all three dimensions of burnout. Academic achievement and emotional exhaustion and depersonalization scores were negatively (r=-0.133, p<0.001 and r=-0.173, p<0.001, respectively), competency scores were positively associated (r=0.219, p<0.001). There was a significant positive association between emotional exhaustion and depersonalization (r=0.718, p<0.001) and negative association (r=-0.450, p<0.001) between competency scores. Burnout of medical students should be recognized, individual and institutional preventive strategies should be developed.

Keywords

• Medical Student;
• burnout;
• depersonalization
• competency

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