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Burnout is a health problem that affects professionals and students or professionals in training, especially those in health areas. For this reason, it is necessary that it is properly identified to prevent the impact it can have on the work and personal areas of the people who suffer from it. The aim of this work is to study the convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity of the Cuestionario Burnout Granada-University Students. The sample consisted of 463 undergraduate nursing students, selected by non-probabilistic convenience sampling, who participated voluntarily and anonymously in the study. The mean age of the participants was 21.9 (5.12) years, mostly female (74.1%), single (95.8%), and childless (95.6%). Information was collected face-to-face, and the instruments were completed on paper. Comparisons were made in the three dimensions of burnout of the CBG-USS between students with and without burnout, finding statistically significant differences in all three dimensions: Emotional Exhaustion (p < 0.001, d = 0.674), Cynicism (p < 0.001, d = 0.479), and Academic Efficacy (p < 0.001, d = −0.607). The Cuestionario Burnout Granada-University Students presents adequate reliability and validity indices, which demonstrates its usefulness in the identification of burnout. This syndrome has traditionally been measured in professionals, but students also present burnout, so it is necessary to have specific burnout instruments for students, since the pre-work situation and stressors of students are different from those of workers. In order to work on the prevention of university burnout, it is essential to have specific instruments for professionals in training that help in the detection of students with burnout.

Academic burnout is a psychological problem characterized by three dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment. This paper studies the internal structure of the MBI-SS, the most widely used instrument to assess burnout in students. The bifactor model and the ESEM approach have been proposed as alternatives, capable of overcoming the classical techniques of CFA to address this issue. Our study considers the internal structure of the MBI-SS by testing the models most frequently referenced in the literature, along with the bifactor model and the ESEM. After determining which model best fits the data, we calculate the most appropriate reliability index. In addition, we examined the validity evidence using other variables, namely the concurrent relationships with depression, anxiety, neuroticism, and conscientiousness, and the discriminant relationships with the dimensions of engagement, extraversion, and agreeableness. The results obtained indicate that the internal structure of the MBI-SS is well reflected by the three-factor congeneric oblique model, reaching good values of reliability and convergent and discriminant validity. Therefore, when the scale is used in applied contexts, we recommend considering the total scores obtained for each of the dimensions. Finally, we recommend using the omega coefficient and not the alpha coefficient as an estimator of reliability.

This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of burnout syndrome in adolescents entering university studies, to detect differences in burnout levels, personality factors and fear of coronavirus in a pandemic context due to COVID-19. A cross-sectional predictive study was performed with a sample that comprised 134 individuals in their first year of a Psychology degree at Spanish universities. The Maslach Burnout Inventory Student Survey, the NEO Five-Factor Inventory and the Fear of COVID-19 Scale were applied. The prevalence of burnout is estimated according to three methods: Maslach and Jackson’s severity classification, Golembiewski’s phase model and Maslach et al.’s profile model. The estimates show significant differences. The results indicated that between 9 and 21% of students were at risk of developing burnout. On the other hand, students who reported having suffered psychological consequences of the pandemic showed greater emotional exhaustion, neuroticism and fear of COVID-19, and a lower level of personal accomplishment than those who did not suffer such consequences. Neuroticism was the only significant predictor for all burnout dimensions, and fear of COVID-19 did not contribute to any of them.