Academic burnout, professional commitment and psychological capital in undergraduate clinical and health psychology students Academic Article in Scopus uri icon

abstract

  • Clinical practice is a space where psychology students can deepen their knowledge, skills, and attitudes in a real therapeutic context with patients. Due to the simultaneity of activities between academic demands and clinical training at the same time, there is a high risk of developing burnout syndrome, which reduces their quality of life. To face this situation, professional commitment and psychological capital (efficacy, resilience, optimism and hope) are resources that students use to see the clinical practice period as a positive experience of great significance, not only as a stressful period in their lives. The study was cross-sectional, descriptive and correlational with the aim of identifying the relationship between academic burnout, professional commitment and psychological capital in university students. 132 clinical and health psychology students from Tecnologico de Monterrey participated. The instruments used were the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey (MBI-SS), the Occupational Commitment Scale (ESCOLA), the Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ) and a sociodemographic questionnaire. The results indicated that all students experienced a significant level of burnout. In addition, significant and negative relationships between academic burnout and psychological capital (r = ¿0.505, p = 0.001) and academic burnout and professional commitment (r = ¿0.562, p = 0.001) were found. The high levels of emotional exhaustion require special attention to the mental health of the students. Therefore, implementing strategies and programs to prevent emotional exhaustion that increase psychological capital such as efficacy, resilience, optimism, and hope will be most effective for students' mental health. © 2025 IEEE.

publication date

  • January 1, 2025