Self-reported wartime experiences, emotional burden, mental exhaustion, and professional functioning among medical teachers at a Ukrainian medical university: a repeated cross-sectional study

Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian higher education has functioned under persistent conditions of insecurity, disruption, and uncertainty. Medical universities have been particularly affected because they perform both an educational mission and a strategic role in maintaining the country’s healthcare system. The aim of this study was to describe self-reported wartime experiences, emotional burden, mental exhaustion and perceived professional functioning among medical university teachers at a Ukrainian medical university, and to compare response distributions between two survey waves conducted in 2024 and 2025. The repeated cross-sectional survey was conducted among academic staff at Bogomolets National Medical University (BNMU), Kyiv, Ukraine, during the war in 2024 ( n =99) and 2025 ( n = 100). Participants were recruited through university communication channels and institutional email. Data were collected using 24-question survey addressing wartime disruptions, working conditions, self-reported emotional and perceived professional functioning. Responses were summarized descriptively, and between-wave distributions were compared using statistical methods appropriate to the response categories. The study included 199 participants across two survey waves. High self-rated teaching effectiveness (scores of 4–5 on a five-point scale) was reported by 84% of participants in 2024 and 76% in 2025. High mental exhaustion (scores of 4–5) was reported by 44.4% and 51.0%, respectively. Anxiety was frequently reported (63.6% and 68.0%), while job satisfaction and intentions to remain in academic work were generally high in both samples. Response distributions were broadly similar across the two waves, without a consistent pattern of statistically supported differences. Exploratory correlation analyses identified associations between self-reported emotional burden and professional self-evaluations, but these findings do not establish causal relationships. In two survey waves conducted at one Ukrainian medical university, participants generally reported favorable perceptions of professional functioning despite frequent emotional burden and mental exhaustion. The broadly similar response patterns observed in 2024 and 2025 suggest that continued professional engagement and subjective psychological strain can coexist during prolonged wartime conditions. These exploratory findings should be interpreted in light of the study's single-institution setting, voluntary sampling, and reliance on non-validated self-report measures.