Faculty Collaboration Database

Medical Student Burnout as Impacted by Trait Emotional Intelligence - Moderated by Three-Year and Four-Year Medical Degree Programs and Gender. WMJ 2021 Oct;120(3):188-194

Date

10/29/2021

Pubmed ID

34710299

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Medical student burnout has received increasing attention in recent years due to greater acceptance of psychological and emotional vulnerability in the health care profession. Given the significant investment of personal and financial resources in this demanding profession, continued evaluation of factors contributing to burnout in medical training is necessary. A midwestern medical college with a longstanding 4-year medical degree program created 2 regional campuses that utilize a calendar-efficient 3-year medical degree program. The objective in this study is to examine if medical student burnout scores are higher for students on the 3-year campuses and how that is affected by emotional intelligence.

METHODS: First- and second-year medical students voluntarily completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory for Students (scale: 1 = never, 7 = every day) and the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (scale: 1 = completely disagree, 7 = completely agree). Multifactor analysis of variance assessed mean differences in burnout between campus and gender. Multivariate linear regressions were used for predicting burnout from emotional intelligence.

RESULTS: Three-year campus students reported significantly (P<0.010) higher mean [SD] scores (8.3 [2.0]) than the 4-year campus students (7.4 [2.4]), and female students reported significantly (P<0.049) higher scores (8.2 [2.0]) than male students (7.6 [2.4]). Five emotional intelligence facets were independently associated with increased burnout scores (R² = 0.26, P<0.001) but significantly varied with campus and gender.

CONCLUSIONS: There were higher burnout scores in students studying on the two 3-year campuses compared to students on the traditional 4-year campus and higher scores for female students than male students. Different facets of emotional intelligence mitigated student burnout by campus and gender.

Author List

Treat R, Hueston WJ, Fritz J, Prunuske A, Hanke CJ

Authors

Craig J. Hanke PhD Assistant Dean, Associate Professor in the Medical School Regional Campuses department at Medical College of Wisconsin
Amy Jeanette Prunuske PhD Professor in the Medical School Regional Campuses department at Medical College of Wisconsin
Robert W. Treat PhD Associate Professor in the Academic Affairs department at Medical College of Wisconsin

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Burnout, Professional
Emotional Intelligence
Female
Humans
Male
Students, Medical
Surveys and Questionnaires