academic burnout among healthcare services management students and its contributing factors: a cross-sectional study from iran

Introduction:academic burno ut (ab) poses a serious challenge for university students,particularly those in demanding disciplines such as healthcare services management (hsm).the study aims to explore ab and its contributing factors among hsm students, ultimatelyproviding insights that inform strategies to mitigate this issue and improve educationaloutcomes in this critical field.methods:this cross sectional study targeted 118 hsm students at shiraz university ofmedical sciences (sums), who were invited to fill out a 22 item qu estionnaire comprisingsix demographic items and 15 items from the maslach burnout inventory ( data werecollected using the census method and analyzed with spss software (version 26). descriptivestatistics of ab and its dimensions were provided. also, kruskal wallis and mann whitney utests were used for the bivariate analysis, with a significance level set at p value< 0.05.results:overall, 118 hsm students with a mean age of 22.56± 3.66 years participated in thisstudy. the total mean score for ab was greater among bsc students than in those pursuingother educational levels, and it was also higher in 2020 and 2021 compared to 2019 and 2022.the students demonstrated a moderate level of ab. significant associations were observedbetween ab score s and factors such as employment status, being local to the universitylocation, and year of enrollment.conclusion:the results indicated that hsm students exhibited a moderate level of ab.therefore, policymakers are strongly encouraged to implement imme diate interventions suchas access to academic counseling, time management workshops, peer support programs, andflexible course scheduling to provide a supportive educational environment for these students.