Resilience and Burnout among Medical Students: The Role of Difficulties with Emotion Regulation as A Mediator

Abstract

Burnout is a chronic state of exhaustion caused by prolonged stress. Medical training has been shown to leave many medical students vulnerable to burnout, which can negatively impact their health and patient care. While resilience has been associated with lower burnout, the mechanisms through which resilience reduces burnout are not well established. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether difficulties with emotion regulation mediate the relationship between resilience and burnout among medical students. For this cross-sectional study, we conducted a power analysis to determine the necessary sample size and recruited 82 medical students (mean age = 25.2, 35.4% male) to complete a questionnaire that measured burnout (Oldenburg Burnout Inventory), difficulties with emotion regulation (Difficulties in Emotional Regulation Scale), and resilience (Brief Resilience Scale). Hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to examine the mediation model. Our results indicate that difficulties with emotion regulation mediate the relationship between resilience and burnout, with a significant indirect effect of resilience on burnout. The mediation model explained 16% of the variance in burnout. In conclusion, difficulties in emotion regulation may increase the risk of burnout among medical students. Our findings suggest that enhancing resilience and adaptive emotion regulation could help protect medical students against burnout.