The relationship between spirituality and burnout among medical students
UMass Chan Affiliations
Department of PsychiatryDocument Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2013-01-14Keywords
medical studentsburnout
spirituality
religion
Medical Education
Mental and Social Health
Psychiatry
Psychiatry and Psychology
Religion
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Show full item recordAbstract
Medical student burnout has been associated with depression, loss of empathy, and suicidal ideation. Spirituality has been identified in previous studies as a protective factor in coping with the stress but has not been examined as a factor in medical student burnout. An internet link to an anonymous survey was sent via email to medical students at a public northeastern medical school; 259/469 (55.2%) completed it. The survey included measures of spirituality, burnout, psychological distress, coping, and general happiness. A Pearson-r correlation showed significant inverse correlations between measures of spirituality and measures of psychological distress/burnout (r's ranging from -.62 to -.14; p's < .01). In contrast, a positive correlation was found between life satisfaction and spirituality (r's .53 to .12; p < .05). Using hierarchical multiple regression with demographics (Step 1), mental health variables (Step 2), and satisfaction and Adaptive coping (Step 3), burnout remained significantly related to lower scores on both spirituality measures (FACIT-SP p < .00 and DSE p < .05). Students having higher levels of spiritual well being and daily spiritual experiences described themselves as more satisfied with their life in general, while students with low scores on spiritual well being and daily spiritual experiences had higher levels of psychological distress and burnout. Spirituality may therefore be a protective factor against burnout in medical students and future studies should explore potential causal relationships.Source
Wachholtz A, Rogoff M. The relationship between spirituality and burnout among medical students. J Contemp Med Edu. 2013; 1(2): 83-91. doi:10.5455/jcme.20130104060612DOI
10.5455/jcme.20130104060612Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/46176PubMed ID
25485165Related Resources
Link to article in PubMedRights
This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.5455/jcme.20130104060612