Burnout syndrome, extracurricular activities and social support among Brazilian internship medical students: a cross-sectional analysis

BACKGROUND: Burnout syndrome (BS) is highly prevalent among medical students and is associated with lower empathy and worsening of medical students ´ mental health. The aim of our study was to identify prevalence of BS during internship and its association with self-rated social support and participation in extracurricular activities in one medical school in Brazil. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in 2015, with 121 medical students on internship (56% response rate). They were evaluated using the Maslach Burnout Inventory – Human Services (MBI) and assessed about socio demographic data, social support and extracurricular activities. RESULTS: The overall BS prevalence was 57.5% among medical interns. High emotional exhaustion was present in 33.1% (N = 38) of interns, high depersonalization was observed in 45.7% (N = 58) and 36.2% of participants (N = 46) had low personal accomplishment. Individuals with participation in community services had lower frequency of depersonalization (prevalence ratio 0.61 CI95% 0.42–0.88). BS was not associated with different types of extracurricular activities and no association was found among BS and the behaviour of seeking social support. CONCLUSIONS: We found high prevalence of BS in medical interns, however the behaviour of seeking social support had no association with BS. The interns participating in community activities had lower frequency of high depersonalization.