Burnout and Eating-Disorder Screening Risk Among Health Sciences Students in Peru: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Background/

Objectives

Burnout and eating-disorder screening risk are relevant concerns among health sciences students, but evidence from northern Peru remains limited. The primary objective was to examine whether an archived study-specific burnout classification (independent/explanatory variable) was associated with probable eating-disorder symptomatology (dependent/outcome variable) among students enrolled in Human Medicine, Nursing, and Dentistry.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was conducted at a private university in the Lambayeque Region, Peru, during the 2023-II academic semester. The analytical sample comprised 200 students. Eating-disorder screening was assessed with the Eating Attitudes Test-26 (EAT-26), and burnout was assessed with a 22-item Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) version. The revision uses retained aggregate outputs because individual-level item data are no longer available.

Results

Seventy-four students (37.0%) were in the archived probable eating-disorder symptomatology category. The corresponding proportions were 0/53 (0.0%) in the study-specific low MBI category, 21/80 (26.3%) in the medium category, and 53/67 (79.1%) in the high category (chi-square = 86.05, p < 0.001; Cramer's V = 0.656). Exploratory differences were also observed by sex, living arrangement, academic program, employment status, study time, and sleep duration.

Conclusions

The archived categorical results show a strong bivariate association between the two study-specific screening classifications. Because the design was cross-sectional and non-probabilistic and the item-level data needed to verify instrument scoring and reliability are unavailable, the findings should not be interpreted as causal or diagnostic.