Mental health, distress tolerance and academic burnout in medical interns of Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Iran, in 2022

Medicine is one of the stressful fields that can threaten the mental health of students of this field. This study was conducted with the aim of evaluating the state of mental health, academic burnout and distress tolerance of medical students of Kashan University of Medical Sciences during their internship.

This cross-sectional study was conducted at Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Iran. The statistical population included medical students (n=390) in the internship stage in the academic year of 2021-2022 who were enrolled by the census method. A total of 250 students completed the informed consent form and answered the questionnaires of general health (GHQ-28), distress tolerance (DTS) of Simon and Gaher, and Maslach academic burnout.

The mean of mental health was 25.47±8.02, distress tolerance was 45.62±11.8, and academic burnout was 39.42±16.03, which according to the cut-off points for each of the questionnaires, it can be said that 39.2% had no psychological symptoms, 52.8% had mild symptoms and 8% had moderate symptoms. Also, 47.2% of students reported low distress tolerance. Regarding academic burnout, 74.4% of students reported very high emotional exhaustion.

On average, the students had mild psychological symptoms, but despite relatively good distress tolerance, they suffered from high emotional exhaustion. Considering the role of emotional exhaustion in the occurrence of psychological problems in the future, it is important to find the factors affecting it and provide psychological services to reduce it and prevent the psychological problems.