Burn Out Among Medical Students - A Study Across Three Medical Colleges in Eastern India.

ABSTRACT

Burnout is described as a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, and reduced personal accomplishment that may develop when there is significant stress without adequate support and resources in the face of work overload, as commonly happens with physicians and undergraduate medical students. Materials and Methods: This work attempted to study the level of burn out among all the third and fifth semester medical students in three different medical colleges. 596 students from three medical colleges participated in the study wherein they were given standard questionnaires for assessment of stress, support, satisfaction and control parameters. Results: Overall 310 students of the 596 (52.01%) interviewed had scores correlating with burn out. All the colleges across semesters showed burnout in the various parameters individually like stress, lack of support, dissatisfaction, lack of control and perception of success. Conclusions: Individual as well as organizational interventions need to be targeted to prevent burnout among medical students.