PREVALENCE OF BURNOUT AMONG CLINICAL UNDERGRADUATES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN

Abstract

Burnout is described as a syndrome may result from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed, especially among people whose profession involves numerous direct interactions with people. Undergraduate clinical students are typically exposed to such conditions predisposing to burnout in our practice area. It is probable that this may affect their academic performances and general well-being; hence this study sought to provide information on prevalence of burnout among University of Ibadan clinical students. A total of 361 students at the clinical phase of their training for degrees in Medicine and Surgery (n=185); Physiotherapy (n= 28); Dentistry (n=73); and Medical Laboratory Sciences (n=75) at the University of Ibadan were recruited using proportionally stratified random sampling technique. Socio-demographic information were obtained and their burnout level assessed using Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). Data were summarised using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics of chi-square test of association and kruskal-wallis at p= 0.05.Results showed a pattern of high prevalence of burnout in the depersonalization domain (72.6%), 44% had feelings of low personal accomplishment, and 12.7% had feelings of emotional exhaustion on the MBI grading. Both the low personal accomplishment and feeling of emotional exhaustion are precursor to actual burnout. Results suggest that about 7 in every 10 students experience burnout or are at a risk of having burnout. The outcome of this study points to the need for appropriate measures to guard against possible factors predisposing to burnout among clinical students at different levels of their trainings.