Prevalence and associated factors of burnout among Debre Berhan University medical students: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Burnout, a measure of professional distress, is more common among medical professionals. About half of medical students have this problem. However, little is known about the burnout status of medical students in Ethiopia. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the prevalence and associated factors of burnout among medical students of Debre Berhan University (DBU). METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted on randomly selected 151 medical students of DBU. Burnout was assessed using the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS). Participants were reported as having burnout if they scored ≥27 on Emotional Exhaustion (EE), ≥13 on Depersonalization (DP) sub-scales, and ≤ 31 on Personal Accomplishment (PA) sub-scale of the MBI-HSS. EpiData version 3.1 was used for data entry while SPSS version 20 and STATA version 13 for windows were used for data analysis. Both univariable and multivariable binary logistic regression analyses were conducted. The degree of association between variables was assessed using odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) at two-tailed p-value of < 0.05. RESULT: Of 144 medical students took part, 34.0% had symptoms of burnout. Regarding domains of burnout, 61.8% scored high on EE, 47.9% scored high on DP and 59.7% scored low on PA. Dissatisfaction with practice lecturer (AOR = 3.8, 95% CI (1.3, 11.6)), moderate social support (AOR = 0.2, 95% CI (0.1, 0.8)), and satisfaction with their education (AOR = 0.1 95% CI (0.0, 0.7)) were associated with burnout. CONCLUSION: More than one-third of medical students at DBU had burnout. Individual and organizational level interventions targeting students who had poor social support, dissatisfied by their lecturer at the hospitals and their education are recommended.