PLoS ONE (Jan 2024)

Is the fire even bigger? Burnout in 800 medical and nursing students in a low middle income country.

  • Syed Hamza Mufarrih,
  • Nada Qaisar Qureshi,
  • Syeda Amrah Hashmi,
  • Abbas Raza Syed,
  • Muhammad Zohaib Anwar,
  • Riaz Hussain Lakdawala,
  • Nargis Asad,
  • Adil Haider,
  • Shahryar Noordin

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307309
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 19, no. 8
p. e0307309

Abstract

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BackgroundBurnout, characterized by emotional exhaustion (EX), depersonalization (DP), and a reduced sense of personal efficacy (PF) among medical and nursing students can lead to suicidal ideation, lack of empathy, and dropouts. Previous studies have used over-simplified definitions of burnout that fail to capture its complexity. We describe the prevalence of burnout profiles and its risk factors among medical and nursing students.MethodsA cross sectional study was conducted at a tertiary care University Hospital in Pakistan. The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) survey was disseminated via SurveyMonkey over a period of 4 months (November 2019 to February 2020) to 482 Medical and 441 nursing students. The MBI tool measures the dimensions of EX, DP, and PF to describe seven burnout profiles. Multivariable regression was used to identify predictors of burnout.ResultsThe response rate was 92% in nursing and 87.3% in medical students. The prevalence of burnout in medical and nursing students was 16.9% and 6.7% respectively (pConclusion and relevanceTwo-thirds of our participants experienced at least one dimension of burnout with the highest prevalence of a reduced sense of PF. Drivers of burnout unique to a lower-middle-income country need to be understood for effective interventions. Faculty training on principles of student evaluation and feedback may be beneficial.