Burnout Without Borders: Exploring Burnout and the Validity of the Maslach Burnout Inventory Among Medical Students Across Four Countries in Africa

There has been little or no cross-cultural validation study of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) from sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This study aims to test three hypotheses among medical students in four selected countries - Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Uganda in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This res...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:West African journal of medicine Vol. 42; no. 6; p. 443
Main Authors: Oluwadiya, K S, Adeoti, A O, Usman, M I, Maison, P O M, Rahman, G A, Olasinde, A A, Mensah, S
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Nigeria 30.06.2025
Subjects:
Adult
Africa South of the Sahara - epidemiology
Burnout, Professional - diagnosis
Burnout, Professional - epidemiology
Cross-Cultural Comparison
Cross-Sectional Studies
Factor Analysis, Statistical
Female
Ghana - epidemiology
Humans
Male
Nigeria - epidemiology
Prevalence
Psychological Tests
Reproducibility of Results
Self Report
Sierra Leone - epidemiology
Students, Medical - psychology
Students, Medical - statistics & numerical data
Surveys and Questionnaires
Uganda - epidemiology
Young Adult
Africa South of the Sahara
Uganda
Ghana
Sierra Leone
Nigeria
Medical undergraduates
Burnout
Cross-cultural validity
Maslach
Africa
ISSN:0189-160X
Online Access:Get more information
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Summary:There has been little or no cross-cultural validation study of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) from sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This study aims to test three hypotheses among medical students in four selected countries - Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Uganda in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This research utilized a cross-sectional design and employed an online self-administered questionnaire. The measurement of burnout was conducted utilizing the Maslach Burnout Inventory General Survey for Students (MBI-GS (S) on Google Form. The survey was distributed via WhatsApp to medical students enrolled in six medical schools across four countries. The statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS AMOS version 24 for Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) with Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The prevalence of burnout varied among the medical students in the four countries with Ghana (72.1%) and Nigeria (61.2%) higher than Sierra Leone (59.2%) and Uganda (47.7%). Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the 3-factor structure of the MBI-GS(S) fits both the overall sample and the samples from each of the four individual countries albeit after correlating error terms in the analysis. However, hypothesis 2, which posited structural invariance across the samples from the four countries, was only partially met as the model demonstrated configural invariance across the samples but not metric invariance. The results of our study provide empirical evidence supporting the presence of burnout among medical students, revealing significant disparities across the participating countries. While the MBI-GS (S) proved to be a useful tool for this assessment, our findings also highlight the challenges of achieving measurement invariance in cross-cultural research, underscoring the need for culturally adaptable methodologies.
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ISSN:0189-160X