Fired Up or Burned Out: The Relationship Between Self-Efficacy and Burnout Among Physician Assistant Program Directors and Principal Faculty.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between perceived self-efficacy and burnout among physician assistant (PA) educators. Additionally, the effect of gender, educator position, years of experience, and program accreditation status on self-efficacy was explored.

Methods: Program directors (PD) and principal faculty (PF) answered a survey that included demographics, General Self-Efficacy (GSE) Scale, and Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educator Scale (MBI-ES). Data analysis included descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, two-tailed independent samples t-test, and ANOVA (p < 0.05).

Results: There were 163 PA educator participants and a 24.4% (n=75) PD response rate. A statistically significant negative correlation was found between GSE and emotional exhaustion and between GSE and depersonalization. Conversely, a statistically significant positive correlation was found between GSE and personal achievement (p < 0.001). There was no significant difference in GSE of PD and PF, but there was a statistically significant difference in emotional exhaustion. PD experienced significantly more emotional exhaustion than PF (p = 0.02). However, there was no significant difference in their feelings of depersonalization or personal achievement.

Conclusion: A significant relationship was seen between GSE and all three subscales of the burnout inventory in PA educators, and PD experienced significantly more emotional exhaustion than PF.