Burnout Levels and Factors Related to Burnout in Pharmacy Undergraduate Students

Abstract

Objectives: To assess the levels of burnout and to determine the association between burnout and personal factor, factors on teaching and learning, and six areas of learning-person mismatch levels among pharmacy undergraduate students. Methods: This survey research was conducted in 217 2^nd- 6^th year pharmacy undergraduate students aged over 20years old in a university. Online questionnaire was used for data collection between January 20 and February 25, 2020. Results: The questionnaire was completed by 189 students with a response rate of 87.1%. Most of the respondents reported high levels of emotional exhaustion and low levels of reduced personal accomplishment (69.3%and 92.6%, respectively). Low, medium and high level of depersonalization was found in a similar proportion of subjects (38.6%, 30.2% and 31.2%, respectively).  The study identified statistically significant association between burnout and various factors as follows. Emotional exhaustion were associated with main reason for entering pharmacy schools, stress from classes and examinations and learning-person mismatch in lack of control in study, insufficient reward or recognition, lack of peer interaction, conflict between study and one own personality. Depersonalization was associated with gender, class year, study hours or hours of internship and all of six areas of study-person mismatch. Reduced personal accomplishment were not associated with any factors in the study. Conclusions: Pharmacy students reported burnout from learning, leading to stress. Therefore, appropriate arrangement of classes and examinations for the learners, planning for both in-classes and extra-curriculum activities, study-reward, grouping activities and leisure time are warrant for a better quality of life and sustainable learning achievement among students.