Prevalence of burnout and its perceived contributing factors among Level III physical therapy students / The Health Sciences Journal

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION@#Physical therapy students, who train on how to handle patients, also experience burnout due to social, academic, and personal factors. The study aimed to determine the prevalence of burnout among third year physical therapy students of UERM and the factors that contribute to it. @*METHODS@#A descriptive cross-sectional research design was used to determine the prevalence of burnout and its perceived contributing factors. Eligible students answered the Maslach Burnout Inventory General Survey for Students (MBI-GS(S)) and a self-developed questionnaire regarding academic, social, and personal factors of burnout. Microsoft Excel was used to compute the standard (z) values and prevalence rate.@*RESULTS@#None of the 26 respondents fit the criteria to be classified as “burnout”, however 42.3% were “overextended”, 34.6% were “ineffective” and 23.1% were “engaged”. The top factors reported by the participants were too much workload to handle, being left behind academically compared to peers, and pushing oneself too hard for the academic, social, and personal categories, respectively.@*CONCLUSION@#None of the limited number of respondents met the criteria for “burnout”. The most perceived academic reason contributing to their burnout is the volume of workload. The feeling of being left behind academically compared to their peers was shown to be the most perceived social factor. The tendency to push themselves too hard to accomplish their task perfectly/completely was seen as the most perceived personal factor in this study.