Study Engagement and Burnout of the PhD Candidates in Medicine: A Person-Centered Approach

Abstract

This study focused on exploring individual variations in doctoral candidates’ well-being, in terms of experienced research engagement and burnout by using a person-centered approach. In addition, the associations between well-being profiles and gender, country of origin, study status (full-time or part-time), research group status and drop-out intentions were explored. The participants were 692 PhD candidates in the field of medicine. Latent profile analysis was employed to identify the well-being profiles. Four distinct profiles were identified: high engagement–low burnout, high engagement–moderate burnout, moderate engagement–moderate burnout, and moderate engagement–high burnout. Working in a clinical unit or hospital and working in a research group seemed to be related to increased engagement and reduced risk for suffering burnout, while the intentions to quit one’s doctoral studies were more frequently reported in profiles with moderate levels of engagement. The findings imply that although a significant number of PhD candidates in medicine had an increased risk for developing burnout, for most of the PhD candidates research education is an engaging experience.

Burnout Profiles Among Young Researchers: A Latent Profile Analysis

“…Furthermore, our findings show that the Overextended group consists of a significantly higher number of women, which corroborates some previous studies, where women score slightly higher on emotional exhaustion ( Maslach et al, 2001 ; Lindblom et al, 2006 ; Watts and Robertson, 2011 ; Mattijssen et al, 2020b ). Yet, the evidence is mixed, as in some studies male postgraduates are more likely to experience high levels of exhaustion ( Tikkanen et al, 2021 ), while others show no association between gender and exhaustion ( Hunter and Devine, 2016 ). Nonetheless, caution with the interpretation of the results of the Overextended profile is required as it only consisted of 2.3% of the sample.…”

“… Tikkanen et al (2021) investigated engagement and burnout risk among medical doctoral students through LPA. Four distinct profiles were identified: high engagement–low burnout, high engagement–moderate burnout, moderate engagement–moderate burnout, and moderate engagement–high burnout ( Tikkanen et al, 2021 ). Additionally, some other studies conducted LPA among university students ( Lee et al, 2017 ; Salmela-Aro and Read, 2017 ; Portoghese et al, 2018 ).…”

“…Stress-related diseases are a growing concern in the academic work environment, affecting young researchers in particular ( Watts and Robertson, 2011 ; Levecque et al, 2017 ; Woolston, 2017 ; Evans et al, 2018 ; Mattijssen et al, 2020a , b ; Tikkanen et al, 2021 ). Although some stress is beneficial for personal and professional growth ( Pappa et al, 2020 ), prolonged exposure to stress may lead to mental health problems such as burnout, a condition characterized by extreme exhaustion, cynicism and reduced professional efficacy ( Maslach et al, 2001 ).…”

“…Second, there are consequences on the organizational and societal level. Mental health issues are positively correlated with lower work engagement ( Taris et al, 2017 ; Tikkanen et al, 2021 ), reduced productivity, more turnover intentions and financial costs ( Dorenkamp and Weiß, 2018 ; McAlpine et al, 2018 ; Nagy et al, 2019 ; Barthauer et al, 2020 ; Cho and Hayter, 2021 ; Jaksztat et al, 2021 ; Tikkanen et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Despite an increase in burnout studies in the academic work context and the surge in a person-centered approach to investigating burnout risk, little is still known about young researchers’ latent burnout profiles ( Mäkikangas and Kinnunen, 2016 ; Spurk et al, 2020 ). To our knowledge, only one study has conducted LPA among young researchers ( Tikkanen et al, 2021 ). However, it did not include an analysis on how the identified profiles differed in terms of job demands and resources.…”