Factors of psychological burnout and early manifestations of stress in university students in Mexico

Abstract

One of the common problems faced by students is the consequences of psychological burnout. Among these consequences are increased health problems and levels of academic stress, which can be defined as the discomfort that the student presents due to physical or emotional factors that exert significant pressure affecting their academic performance and their metacognitive ability to solve problems. A non-experimental, descriptive, cross-sectional, correlational, non-experimental research was designed in which the sample consisted of 1134 students from different careers in a public university center in southern Jalisco. For the evaluation of stress, Seppo Aro's Symptomatic Stress Scale (E.S.E.), proposed in 1983, was applied, and the Battery for the study of psychosocial work conditions “CTCPS-MAC” was used to evaluate psychological burnout. As a result, 34.23% of the women reported a higher level of psychological stress in factor 1 of cognitive-emotional response, while the men had a higher score in factor 2 of behavioral response with 5.38%. Regarding academic stress, 78.83% of the women reported harmful stress and 21.17% were men. This study places special emphasis on the importance of implementing actions to improve institutional health.