The relationship between burnout, empathy levels and interest in social activities of medical school students: Two-centre study

Objective: The aim of this study observing the artistic/social activities of medical school students from two different faculties and evaluating the relationship of doing artistic/social activity and burnout risk and empathy levels of students.  Method: This is a descriptive study conducted at Cumhuriyet University Medical School and Necmettin Erbakan University Medical School, Turkey. The data was collected through an online survey. The survey included questions about demographic data and frequencies of participation in artistic-social activities. Determinant Scale for Opinions about the Art (DSOA), Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Scale (MBI-SS), and Basic Empathy Scale (BES) also applied. Results: Four hundred and thirteen students participated in the study. While 64.2% (n=265) of the students thought that "Art" and "Medicine" were related, the rate of those who wanted such an education in the Faculty of Medicine curriculum was only 40.2% (n=166) (p<0.001). The scores of the female students in DSOA were significantly higher than the male students (p<0.001). The burnout risk of students was 54.5%. In the comparison of the scale scores according to participation frequency in artistic/social activities, there were significant differences in cynicism subscale of MBI-SS (p=0.013), affective subscale of BES (p=0.015) and cognitive subscale (p=0.001) of BES. Conclusions: In conclusion, these results support that engaging in artistic activities reduces students' burnout levels and increases empathy levels. It could help reduce students' burnout levels by adding artistic courses or providing the conditions that can reach these activities to the faculty students who have severe educational conditions such as medical school.