Comparing self-reported burnout of pharmacy students on the founding campus with those at distance campuses.

OBJECTIVES: To compare burnout among students: (1) assigned to the founding campus and those assigned to distance campuses and (2) in different academic years of the curriculum. The third objective was to determine the relative ability of each factor to predict burnout among pharmacy students.
METHODS: Students in Gainesville (founding campus) and the Jacksonville, Orlando, and St. Petersburg distance campuses were surveyed using the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Internet-based survey methods were used to evaluate the emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, and depersonalization domains. Students responded using a Likert-type scale (1 = do not feel this way to 7 = feel this extremely strongly).
RESULTS: Among 18 items, 8 significant differences were revealed. Within the emotional exhaustion domain, Gainesville students responded that they were more likely to "feel fatigued in the morning" (p < 0.001), "burned out" (p = 0.001), "used up" (p = 0.02), "frustrated" (p = 0.02), and "emotionally drained" (p < 0.02) compared to the distance students. Gainesville students had the highest average score on the item "I feel as though I treat my student colleagues impersonally" (p = 0.02). Academic year was the best predictor of burnout. Campus assignment was significant for emotional exhaustion, with the highest levels occurring on the founding campus.
CONCLUSIONS: With few exceptions, students at the founding campus in Gainesville reported more emotional burnout than students attending classes at the distance campuses.