The Relationship between COVID- 19 Anxiety and Academic Burnout with the Moderating role of Academic Commitment in Medical Students

Introduction: Academic burnout is one of the major challenges during the academic year that is affected by various factors. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between COVID- 19 anxiety and academic burnout with the moderating role of academic commitment in medical students. Methods: This is an analytical cross- sectional study. the research population consisted of stager and intern medical students at Guilan University of Medical Sciences in the academic year 2020- 2021. 230 people (115 stagers and 115 interns) were selected as the sample by stratified random sampling. Data were collected using Corona Disease Anxiety Scale, Maslach Burnout Inventory- Student Survey, and the Academic Commitment Scale. Data were analyzed using descriptive and analytical statistics (Pearson correlation and adjustment regression) through SPSS. Results: Out of 230 distributed questionnaires, 190 could be analyzed (participation rate=82.60%). Pearson correlation coefficient shows that academic burnout is positively related with COVID- 19 anxiety (r= 0.332,P=0.001) and has a negative and significant relationship with academic commitment (r=-0.304, P=0.001). There is also a negative relationship between COVID- 19 anxiety and academic commitment (r=-0.265, P= 0.0001). Also, the results of adjustment regression analysis showed that the predictor variables (ß) COVID- 19 anxiety (0.26), academic commitment (-0.29) and adjustment role (0.21) in total, predict 0.20 of the variance of the variable of academic burnout. Conclusions: With an increase in academic commitment in students, the effect of COVID- 19 anxiety on academic burnout decreases. It is recommended that medical education planners pay attention to training programs in this area.