Mediating Role of Mindfulness between Emotional Regulation and Burnout among Medical Students

Abstract

The present research was aimed to investigate the mediating role of mindfulness between emotion regulation, and burnout among medical students. Convenient sampling method was used to get medical students (N = 25 7) from different public and private sector medical colleges of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The age of participants ranged between 18 to 25 years (M= 21.2; SD = 1.49). Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003) was used to measure emotional regulation, Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (Brown & Ryan, 2003) was used to measure mindfulness, and Maslach Burnout Inventory Student Survey (Schaufeli et al., 2002) was used to measure burnout among medical students. The reliabilities of the questionnaire were found to be satisfactory. Hypotheses based upon past literature, were tested and fmdings are discussed subsequently. Results indicated positive relationship between emotional regulation and mindfulness, a negative relationship between emotional regulation and burnout, and mindfulness significantly mediated the relationship between emotional regulation and burnout. Significant group differences were also found where female students had better emotional regulation. Medical students in private sector colleges were found to be more mindful, experience less burnout, and can regulate emotions better than medical students of public sector colleges. Day-scholars reported more burnout than hostelite students. Similarly, significant results were also found for medical years group differences where students in later years of medical education experience more burnout, cynicism and less academic efficacy as compare to those students who are in initial years of medical education. These fmdings can lead to better understand mediating role of mmdfulness between emotional regulation and burnout among medical students.