Impact of emotional intelligence on academic burnout among master students in pedagogy of nursing sciences and health techniques in Morocco, 2019: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Burnout is spreading to the student population and becoming a threat of global concern. The aim of our research is to determine the prevalence and socio-demographic factors associated with the academic burnout of master students in the Pedagogy of Nursing and Health Technology in Morocco and to discover the impact of these students’ emotional intelligence on their academic burnout. MATERIALS AND METHOD: This is a descriptive, cross-sectional analytical study conducted among students in the Pedagogy of Nursing and Health Technology in Morocco out of a total of 108 students of different ages and genders. A questionnaire is used for the collection of data pertaining to students. For each dependent variable, a bivariate analysis was conducted, and the independent variables associated with it were included in a multivariate model. RESULTS: The prevalence of academic burnout is estimated at 36.1% among the studied populations (exhaustion 19.4%, cynicism 21.3%, and reduced efficacy 2.8%). 53.7% of students have a high level of emotional intelligence. Multivariate analysis showed that exhaustion is significantly associated with gender (aOR = 3.4, 95% CI = 1.0-11.7, P = 0.04), age (aOR = 0.2, 95% CI = 0.0-0.8, P = 0.02) and cynicism was associated with sports activity (aOR = 2.9, 95% CI = 1.0-8.1, P = 0.038). The emotional intelligence is independent predictor of exhaustion, but it has a positive impact on cynicism (aOR = 1.05, 95% CI = 1.0-1.09, P = 0,027) and a negative impact on reduced efficacy (aOR = 0.8, 95% CI = 0.6-0.9, P = 0.01). CONCLUSION: The results of this study uncover the prevalence of the phenomenon of burnout among students and the importance of integrating emotional education into health training.