PREVALENCE OF BURNOUT SYNDROME AMONG PHYSICAL THERAPY STUDENTS

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to verify and characterize the prevalence of burnout syndrome affecting students from the last academic year of the physical therapy course at Federal University of Paraíba. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study with quantitative approach in which we applied the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) for syndrome assessment, and a sociodemographic questionnaire, developed by us. Excel 2003 and GraphPad Prism v.5.04 softwares were used for descriptive and inferential data analysis. Results: The sample was composed by 29 subjects with a mean of 23.10 years, 72% were female, 79% were single, and 87% lived with their families. We identified high/moderate level for emotional exhaustion, low depersonalization and high professional achievement. There was no significant association between the level of burnout and the age and sex. The analysis showed that the greater the number of extracurricular activities, the higher was emotional exhaustion and the lower was personal accomplishment. Conclusion: The results did not show presence of burnout in this sample. However, subjects were at risk of developing it by having high/moderate emotional exhaustion. DESCRIPTORS: Burnout, Professional/Epidemiology. Students. Physiotherapy.