The Relationship Between Anatomical Self-efficacy and Feelings of Burnout in First-year Medical Students

Feelings of burnout in professional students have been associated with additional psychological morbidities and decreased academic achievement. Due to the large volume of content that medical students need to learn during gross anatomy courses, it is possible that anatomical self-efficacy may be a contributing factor to feelings of burnout. Anatomical self-efficacy is defined as a student’s judgment of their ability to execute tasks related to learning anatomy and perform course activities (e.g., dissection). First-year medical students were invited to provide basic demographic information at the beginning of the semester and to complete the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory-student version (OLBI-SS) and the Anatomical Self-Efficacy Instrument (ASEI); at the beginning, middle, and end of the semester, they were enrolled in gross anatomy. Typical descriptive statistics for the demographic information were conducted, as well as, correlational analyses assessing if the information had a relationship with either anatomical self-efficacy or burnout. Female students were more burnt out than male students. Repeated measures ANOVA revealed that students’ feelings of burnout significantly increased from the beginning of the semester to the midpoint and the end of the semester (p < 0.05). Linear regression demonstrated a predictive relationship between anatomical self-efficacy and burnout (p < 0.05) at all three measurement points in which lower self-efficacy was predictive of increased feelings of burnout.