Post Covid-19 Assessment of Burnout Syndrome among University Lecturers in a State University in Nigeria: A Case Study

Abstract

Present realities among universities academics in attest to the fact that significant number of them are
experiencing burnout syndrome, with very serious damaging impacts on their health, sometimes leading to death and
having ripple effects on students’ educational performance and overall well-being. This paper therefore, presents
descriptive survey which was conducted to investigate burnout among lecturers and to know the predictive strength
of age and gender on burnout among study participants. Participants were 162 conveniently sampled university
lecturers, from a State university in southwestern Nigeria. They responded to the re-validated version of
Copenhagen burnout inventory that was used for data collection and had Alpha reliability co-efficients of .80; .78
and .83 for personal,work and students’ burnout respectively. Data collected over the period of three weeks were
analysed, and the results indicating 109 (67.2%) male and 53 (32.7%) female; 129 (79.6%) Christians and 33
(20.4%) Muslims; 155 (95.7%) respondents were married, while 7(4.3%) were widow/widower; 123 (75.9%)
respondents possessed PhD and 39(24.1%) had Master’s degree. Participants’ age ranged between 30 - 68 years.
Result of hypotheses tested indicated that burnout syndrome was prevalent among participants, however, gender and
age did not significantly predict burnout among lecturers. It was concluded that male and female lecturers are
experiencing burnout syndrome and the earlier the university management intervenes to reduce stress among the
lecturers the better. It is recommended among other things that lecturers should also endeavour to pay attention to
themselves and device appropriate coping mechanisms to be able to manage stress and avoid burnout.