Original Articles Open access

The burnout phenomenon among student radiographers: a single centre experience

[The burnout phenomenon among student radiographers: a single centre experience]

Authors

Published
4 March 2025
Section
Original Articles
DOI
10.4081/gimle.640
Pages
256-262

Abstract

Purpose. Burnout syndrome is a condition that may occur not only for staff in human service sectors/jobs, involving intensive interactions with others, but also people that are engaged in activities psychologically similar to work, such as students. Radiographers in training suffer double stress, first linked to the status of being a university student and secondly as early career workers who have relations with the public of the health system. Aim of our study was to investigate the prevalence and levels of burnout syndrome among radiographers in training in an University Hospital.
Methods. In order to gain a better understanding of nature of the burnout syndrome a modified version of Malach's questionnaire (investigating three areas: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment), was administered to two groups selected from a cohort of radiographers University students (from the 1s and 3rd year of course).
Results. 62/62 questionnaires were completed, returned and analysed. The research outcomes highlighted a clear difference between group I and group Il in relation to one of the three areas of the Malach's model: "depersonalization" (p<0.001). Moreover, the third year students group presented a significantly higher risk to develop burnout. On the other hand, the third area examined, the reduced personal accomplishment domain, was surprisingly high even among first-year students.
Conclusion. The research outcomes seem to suggest that the presence of emotional burnout, or risk of burnout, among third year students is statistically significant, compared to the first year students, being a significant aspect to investigate further in this class of students. It is also assumed that the high degree of "past failures, feeling of self failure" observed among all student, is related to a feeling of poor efficacy and poor self worth that appear to grow from the beginning of the course. This topic needs further investigation in the light of the result of this study.

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