Background

The preservation of mental health has become especially important in the context of martial law in Ukraine due to the powerful impact of a full-scale war on students of higher medical education.

Objectives

The purpose of the study was to analyze the level of anxiety and emotional burnout among students of higher medical education under martial law.

Material and methods

To study emotional burnout, a survey was conducted among 158 students of a higher education institution in the 5th–6th year of study. The data were collected in 2024. In order to diagnose the manifestations of burnout, the methodology of V.V. Boyko Diagnosis of the level of emotional burnout was used.

Results

The “exhaustion” phase is characterized by complaints of psychophysical fatigue in the form of the feeling that everything has become boring (68.3%), learning is done by force (79.7%), and interest in learning has disappeared (42.4%). Almost half of the students (53.1%) brought home negative emotions. Because of the devastation, their own achievements are leveled, they think that their efforts are in vain (63.3%), and they often feel nervous when communicating with people (48.1%). Almost one in three respondents (35.5%) complained that working with people is accompanied by psycho-emotional exhaustion and worsens their health, with 15.2% of respondents having to take medication to recover. Despite the disturbing symptoms of emotional burnout, only 21.5% of students believe that their studies have been unsuccessful.

Conclusions

It was found that most students have problems connected with the development of emotional burnout syndrome.