Title: Burnout syndrome among medical students during traditional learning before and online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all educational institutions in Kazakhstan have switched to online learning (OL). Previously, using the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory, we noted that the prevalence of personal, studies-related, teacher-related burnout decreased, however,colleague-related burnout increased after transitioning from traditional learning (TL) to OL [1]. A repeated questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was conducted among medical students at Astana Medical University in the 2019–2020 academic year. The first study was conducted during the TL (October–November 2019, N=554), and the second study was conducted during the OL period (April 2020, N=694). Burnout was assessed using the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory adopted and validated by authors [2]. The prevalence of burnout among bachelor students during the period of TL and OLis presented in Fig. 1 (A). Female students were 1.85 times more often to be disengaged during the TL (p<0.05), during the OL there were no gender differences in burnout prevalence. Regardless of gender, after the transition to OL, the incidence of exhaustion and disengagement decreased (Fig. 1B). Among bachelors,2nd-year TL students showed the highest level of burnout (42% vs 28.8%, p<0.001), however during the OL there were no differences in the year of study. Among internship students, the incidence of burnout did not change (TL – 41.5%, OL – 42.9%). Zis et al.found that emotional exhaustion decreased significantly in year 4 but increased in year 6, and cynicism increased in all years [3].In conclusion, the shift to OL due to the pandemic reduced students’burnout. Since this study was conducted in an early period of the pandemic, further research is needed to assess the impact of OL and the pandemic on medical student’s burnout.