The Relationship between Resilience and Academic Burnout among Nursing and Midwifery Students in Kermanshah, Iran

Abstract

Background. Nursing and midwifery students have relatively high levels of academic burnout. One of the mechanisms to combat this issue is resilience. The results related to the association between academic burnout and resilience indicate a negative association, but various studies have reported different correlation coefficients. Therefore, the current study was aimed to investigate the association between resilience and academic burnout among nursing and midwifery students. Methods. A total of 240 nursing and midwifery students were recruited in this cross-sectional study using stratified random sampling. Data were collected by a demographic information questionnaire, the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), and the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey (MBI-SS). Data were analyzed by SPSS-16 using t-test, ANOVA, Spearman’s correlation coefficient, and linear regression analysis. Results. The mean scores of academic burnout for nursing and midwifery students were 41.4 ± 14.8 and 41.2 ± 12.3, respectively, but the difference was not statistically significant ( $p$  = 0.368). The mean scores of resilience for nursing and midwifery students were 58.1 ± 13.3 and 52.9 ± 13.9, respectively, which showed a statistically significant difference ( $p$  = 0.004). Resilience was significantly inversely correlated with academic burnout in nursing and midwifery students (r = −0.04, $p$  < 0.001; r = −0.39, $p$  < 0.001). Increased resilience in students decreased academic burnout ( $p$  < 0.001). Conclusion. Academic burnout was moderate in nursing and midwifery students, but resilience was relatively high. Given the negative correlation between resilience and academic burnout, it is necessary to strengthen resilience skills and reduce factors that cause academic burnout.