Burnout Among Undergraduate Medical Students and its Effect on the Academic Performance

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a burden in almost all aspects of life, including medical education. Some research showed that almost 70% of students suffered from psychological stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Medical students may experience burnout due to stress in distance learning routines and online exams during pandemic. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the burnout that occurs among medical students using Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey (MBI-SS), to determine the factors that affect burnout, and to determine the correlation between burnout and academic performance during the pandemic. This was a cross-sectional study of 218 medical students of Universitas Muhammadiyah Surabaya (UMS). Online questionnaires were distributed in December 2020. The questionnaire consisted of the MBI-SS item with 15 questions that included exhaustion, cynicism, self-efficacy components, and other factors that may cause burnout among students. Spearman test was used to determine the correlation between burnout and its components with academic performance. Seventy-one students (33%) had high MBI-SS scores with details as follows: 56 (26%) students experienced high exhaustion, 63 (29%) students experienced high cynicism, and 87 (40%) students experienced low self-efficacy. The Spearman correlation test showed a positive correlation between academic performance with cynicism (p 0.001) and efficacy (p 0.029). Most of the medical students did not experience burnout. However, cynicism and self-efficacy might affect students' academic performance. These findings indicated that a preventive strategy is needed to reduce cynicism and increase self-efficacy during the learning process of medical students, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic.