Burnout In Dental Students Of Lahore, Pakistan

Objectives: Burnout is a state of prolonged physical and psychological exhaustion. Its presence leads to a vicious cycle of poor health, loss of interest in profession and ultimately poor patient care. We initiated this study with the aim to see the incidence of burnout in dental students and ascertain the factors contributing to it.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted between July-Sep 2014. The study population consisted of 269 dental students in years 1-4 from Institute of Dentistry, CMH Lahore Medical College. Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) was employed. The lower the score on CBI, the lower is the amount of burnout. The relationship between CBI scores and individual characteristics like gender, academic year etc. were examined by using Independent t-test and one way ANOVA.
Results: A total of 202 students formed the final sample. Males had lower scores (46.29 ± 19.86 S.D.) on CBI as compared to females (53.43 ± 17.71 S.D.) (p<0.05). Majority of dental students (53.5%) had a low level of burnout (Kristenson Groups) with only 17.5% falling in high/very high burnout group. Only 8.2% of dental students were found to have no burnout at all on. Excessive study hours, lack of recreation and sleep, accommodation away from home, increased pressure due to academic assessments, fear of failure, competition amongst peers and low test scores were identified as the most frequent factors contributing to burnout.
Conclusions: Our study suggests that a significant number of dental students are being affected by burnout. Curriculum developers and the academic staff need to identify this problem in the dental schools and take prompt actions to prevent burnout and its negative consequences.