Burnout as a correlate of depression among medical students in Cameroon: a cross-sectional study

Objective Burnout syndrome has been shown to mediate the pathway between job stress and depression. This study aims to assess the relationship between the various components of burnout syndrome and depression; and to determine the contribution of other sociodemographic variables to depression among medical students in Cameroon.

Design A cross-sectional study.

Setting Three of the five medical schools in Cameroon with students in both preclinical and clinical levels of studies.

Participants The study included 413 consenting medical students.

Primary outcome measure Data were collected via a printed self-administered questionnaire. The primary outcome—depression was assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire–9 (PHQ-9). Burnout was assessed using the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory. Multivariable linear regression was used to identify independent correlates of depression.

Results The overall prevalence of depression (PHQ-9 >4) and major depressive disorder (PHQ-9 >9) in these students was 66.34% and 23.00%, respectively. After multivariable linear regression analysis, four variables—total OLBI (beta=0.32; 95% CI 0.22 to 0.42; p<0.001); number of children (beta=−2.26; 95% CI −3.70 to –0.81; p=0.002); occurrence of a life-changing crises (beta=1.29; 95% CI 0.13 to 2.45; p=0.029) and presence of a chronic illness (beta=3.19; 95% CI 0.96 to 5.42; p=0.005) significantly predicted depression in these students and explained 32.4% of the variance (R2=32.4, F[14, 204]=6.98, p<0.001). The emotional exhaustion component (R2=17.4, F[1, 411]=86.39, p<0.001) explained more of the variance in depression than the disengagement component (R2=6.1, F[1, 411]=26.76, p<0.001) of burnout syndrome.

Conclusion The prevalence of depression among medical students in Cameroon is high. It is important that correlates of depression are identified early in medical students to limit progress to depression.