• Nuwan Darshana Wickramasinghe, Devani Sakunthala Dissanayake, and Gihan Sajiwa Abeywardena.
• Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka, Saliyapura, 50008, Sri Lanka. nuwick74@yahoo.com.
• BMC Psychol. 2018 Nov 12; 6 (1): 52.

BackgroundWith ever increasing educational expectations and demands, burnout has emerged as a major problem negatively affecting the wellbeing of different student populations. Even though the validity of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey (MBI-SS) is widely assessed across the globe, there is a paucity of related literature in the South Asian settings. Hence, this study was aimed at assessing the factorial structure, validity, and reliability of the MBI-SS among collegiate cycle students in Sri Lanka.MethodsThe pre-tested Sinhala version of the MBI-SS was administered to a sample of 194 grade thirteen students in the Kurunegala district, Sri Lanka. The construct validity of the MBI-SS was assessed using multi-trait scaling analysis and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), while reliability was assessed using internal consistency and test-retest reliability, which was assessed after an interval of two weeks.ResultsCFA revealed that the three-factor model of the MBI-SS fitted the data better than the one-factor and the two-factor model. Only one item (item 13) was identified as having poor psychometric properties. A modified version of the MBI-SS, with item 13 deleted, emerged as an acceptable fitting model with a combination of absolute, relative and parsimony fit indices reaching desired threshold values. All three subscales show high internal consistency with Cronbach's α coefficient values of 0.837, 0.869, and 0.881 and test-retest reliability was high (p < 0.001).ConclusionsThe Sinhala version of the 15-item MBI-SS is a valid and a reliable instrument to assess the burnout status among collegiate cycle students in Sri Lanka. The Sinhala version of the 15-item MBI SS, due to its brevity, ease of administration, and sound psychometric properties, could be used as an effective screening tool to assess student burnout at the school level.

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