ASSOCIATION BETWEEN HOURS OF SYNCHRONOUS VIRTUAL CLASSES AND BURNOUT SYNDROME IN MEDICAL STUDENTS IN LIMA, PERU: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

Castro A.; Noriega-Baella C.; Gonzales G.F.; Vásquez-Velásquez C. · Revista de la Facultad de Medicina Humana (2025) · DOI: 10.25176/rfmh.v25i4.7948

Resumen

Introduction: The transition to virtual medical education in Peru has raised concerns about burnout syndrome (BS). Objective: To assess the association between synchronous and asynchronous virtual classes and BS among medical students during 2021. Methods: Observational, cross-sectional study conducted in 384 medical students from a private university in Lima, Peru. BS was assessed using the Maslach Burnout Inventory–Student Survey (MBI-SS), which measures emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment on a seven-point Likert scale. BS was defined as having at least two altered dimensions. Exposure was weekly hours of synchronous or asynchronous virtual classes (≤24 vs ≥25). Odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated, adjusted for sex and age, and stratified by level of study; p<0.05 was considered significant. Results: BS was identified in 113 (29.4%) students. In Clinical Studies, ≥25 weekly hours of synchronous classes were associated with higher BS compared with ≤24 hours (OR=1.98; 95% CI 1.02–3.86; p=0.043). No association was found in General Studies. Asynchronous classes were not associated with BS (OR=0.97; 95% CI 0.53–1.76; p=0.912). In Clinical Studies, ≥25 synchronous hours were also associated with higher emotional exhaustion and low personal accomplishment (aOR=2.10; 95% CI 1.08–4.08; p=0.029). Conclusion: Synchronous virtual classes were associated with a higher frequency of BS among medical students, particularly those in advanced stages of training. © Article published by the Revista de la Facultad de Medicina Humana of Universidad Ricardo Palma. It is an open access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which allows non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is duly cited.

Instituciones: Universidad Ricardo Palma; Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola