1 Introduction

At the end of 2019, cases of an atypical type of pneumonia associated with a new coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, were reported in China (^{MOJICA; MORALES, 2020}; ^{QUIROZ et al., 2020}). Due to the exponential increase in the number of cases worldwide, the disease was classified by World Health Organization (WHO) as a global pandemic in March 2020 (^{CAMPOS; ALVES, 2021}; ^{QAZI et al., 2020}), a situation that put to test health system in all countries (BUITRAGO et al., 2020). Naturally, this context had a significant impact on society due to the repercussions in different areas, such as health, society, economy, education, culture among others (^{LIZCANO; ARROYAVE, 2020}; ^{MURILLO; DUK, 2020}).

In Peru, the Covid-19 pandemic made the government in power to issue a national state of emergency and mandatory social isolation on March 15, 2020, as an exceptional measure to avoid more infections with the virus (^{MIÑAN et al., 2021}). Focusing on the educational sphere, this measurement caused the interruption of academic activities in all educational institutions - basic and high - (^{ESTRADA et al., 2020}; ^{MEJÍA et al., 2021}) and the teaching-learning category to migrate from on-site to a virtual environment (^{CRUZ; TOLEDO; MENDOZA, 2021}; ESTRADA; MAMANI, 2021; ^{POSTIGO; ARIAS; RAMOS, 2021}). However, this compulsory educational reform caused a lot of concern among teachers and students, since most of them were not used nor prepared to face this new educational methodology (ESTRADA et al., 2021; ^{SUÁREZ et al., 2021}). Though the previous statement, the delivery of educational service continued since it was necessary and the educational community could not be stopped nor affected (^{ORDORIKA, 2020}; ^{TOQUERO, 2020}).

However, it is known that the college context has demands and academic, personal, and social demands for students (^{BRAND et al., 2014}). Besides that, and as previously said, the pandemic made the situation more complex, since they also had to deal with some emergent problems, such as accessibility and connectivity (^{MOLINA et al., 2021}), fear of infection for Covid-19, and economic precariousness (^{ORELLANA, C.; ORELLANA, L., 2020}), factors that increased their stress levels and favored the prevalence of a very common phenomenon at times like these: emotional fatigue.

Emotional exhaustion has been widely studied in the working environment, however, in this research, it will be approached inside the academic environment, once it is not exclusively faced by workers, but also by students, especially in higher education (^{FÍNEZ; MORÁN, 2014}). Following the theoretical model proposed by ^{Maslach, Schaufeli, and Leiter (2001}), emotional exhaustion (caused by excessive academic demands), depersonalization (attitude of indifference towards academic activities), and dissatisfaction with the realization (consciousness of inefficiency as a student) are factors that make academic exhaustion, but the most predominant is emotional exhaustion since the other mentioned factors were not observed significantly or recurrently in them (^{BARRETO; SALAZAR, 2021}; ^{DOMÍNGUEZ, 2013}, 2014; ^{LANGADE et al., 2016}; ^{LLEDÓ et al., 2014}).

Emotional exhaustion is described as energy depletion, fatigue, and exhaustion, both physical and psychological, that students experience (^{VIZOSO; ARIAS, 2018}), caused by excessive psychological demands that could lead individuals to feel their inner resources are being wasted (^{ALSHARIF, 2020}). It is characterized by the manifestation of somatic and psychological symptoms and feelings of not having enough energy to perform and fulfill the assigned academic responsibilities. Its prevalence might affect students’ academic, personal, familiar, and social dimensions. Concerning this topic, many studies have reported that it may cause anxiety, depression, feelings of self-guilty, rumination, catastrophes, and suicidal ideation (^{CABALLERO; GONZALES; PALACIO, 2015}; ^{DOMÍNGUEZ; MERINO, 2018}; ^{JIMÉNEZ et al., 2019}; ^{YOUSSEF, 2016}). They also found inverse associations with academic self-efficiency, self-esteem, engagement, and emotional intelligence (DOMÍNGUEZ, 2018).

Researches in different latitudes sought to know the prevalence of emotional exhaustion in college students and managed to identify that there was a considerable prevalence (^{BARRETO; SALAZAR, 2021}; ^{CASTRO et al, 2019}; ^{ESTRADA; GALLEGOS; MAMANI, 2021}; ^{FERNÁNDEZ; LIÉBANA; MORÁN, 2017}; ^{HERRERA; MOHAMED; CEPERO, 2016}; ^{LEE et al., 2020}; LI et al., 2020; ^{OSORIO; PARRELLO; PRADO, 2020}; SALAZAR et al., 2021; ^{SEPERAK; FERNÁNDEZ; DOMÍNGUEZ, 2021}). On the other hand, some researches discovered that levels of emotional exhaustion were linked to some sociodemographic variables, such as students’ genre (BARRETO; SALAZAR; SALAZAR, 2021; DOMÍNGUEZ et al, 2018; ESTRADA; GALLEGOS, 2020; FERNÁNDEZ; LIÉBANA; MORÁN, 2017; HERRERA; MOHAMED; CEPERO, 2016; ^{LLEDÓ et al., 2014}) and age range (^{AGUAYO et al., 2019}; ^{BOLAÑOS; RODRÍGUEZ, 2016}; ESTRADA; GALLEGOS, 2020). In this sense, women and younger students showed higher level of emotional exhaustion than men and older students, respectively.

The study of emotional fatigue and the determination of its prevalence is a very important topic due to the implications that it has on physical and emotional health, as well as on academic performance. On the regional and national levels, there are not many studies of this phenomenon, therefore, it is expected that, based on the results, preventive and corrective programs might be projected and implemented aiming to reduce its prevalence and the consequences it might have over the students. That way, they could improve their quality of life and effectively deal with college life.

Finally, the goal of this study is to describe Peruvian college students’ emotional exhaustion in their professional career in Education in the Covid-19 pandemic context.

2 Methodology

3 Results

The results shown below came from data collection made with undergraduate students on the Education professional career in a Peruvian public university.

Table 3 shows that 50,4% of the students had high levels of emotional exhaustion, 34,5% had moderate levels, and 15,1% had low levels. This indicates that students were characterized by a group of somatic (tension, insomnia, and headaches) as well as psychologic (anxiety, stress, tension, frustration) symptoms, which lead to deployment of their energy to perform academic activities and deal with university life.

Table 4 shows students’ genders were significantly associated with the emotional exhaustion level (p<0,05). Thus, it is possible to see that the female students showed higher levels of emotional exhaustion than male students, with a predominance of females on the high level (60,1%) and the males on the moderate (41,3%).

According to Table 5, the students’ age range was significantly associated with the level of emotional exhaustion (p<0,05). Thus, it was possible to see that younger students had higher levels of emotional exhaustion than older ones since the first group had more probability of showing high levels while the second group was mostly moderate.

According to Table 6, the field of study to which most students belonged was not significantly associated with the level of emotional exhaustion (p>0,05). Thus, it was possible to see that students of three fields of studies showed high levels of emotional exhaustion.

Table 7 shows that the students’ working status was also not significantly related to the level of emotional exhaustion (p>0,05). On this understanding, it was possible to see that both students who work and those who do not have high levels of emotional exhaustion.

Finally, Table 8 shows that the students’ socioeconomic levels were not significantly associated with the levels of emotional exhaustion (p>0,05). Thus, it was possible to see that students of low, medium, and high socioeconomic levels had high levels of emotional exhaustion.

4 Discussion

Emotional exhaustion is a key-facet of exhaustion. It occurs when academic demands exceed resources and causes energy depletion. People who are emotionally exhausted feel psychologically and emotionally drained and may experience physical fatigue.

Firstly, it was possible to verify that most of the college students showed high levels of emotional exhaustion, indicating that manifestation of a range of somatic (tension, insomnia, and headaches) as well as psychological symptoms (anxiety, stress, tension, frustration).

The described information would be caused by demands and academic demands (exams, homework, reports, expositions, etc.) and additionally by the emerging problems of virtual education in the pandemic context, such as hyperconnection and technostress, are the result of excessive exposure to laptops, tablets, and smartphones that students use to enroll in videocalls and develop their works. In the same way, there are constant problems of intermittence of Internet signal since many of them live in rural areas, where connections are weak. However, there are also problems directly caused by the pandemic, such as the general fear of being infected by the Covid-19 virus and, on the other hand, many students had serious economic limitations due to the restrictive measurements imposed by the government. This situation, in turn, would lead to a decrease in their energy to perform their academic activities and deal with university life, negatively affecting their emotional well-being and quality of life.

This finding matches the one reported by ^{Barreto and Salazar (2021}), who made researches in Colombia aiming to analyze emotional exhaustion in students of higher education in the Health field and determined that the prevalence was high and characterized by the occurrence of somatic (gastric complaints, headaches, changes of the sleeping pattern) and psychological (anxiety, tension, low concentration, anguish) symptoms experienced during the academic periods.

It is also related to the findings reported by ^{Osorio, Parrello, and Prado (2020}) who aimed to determine the levels and types of academic burnout (emotional exhaustion, cynism, and inadequacy) as well as its association with some sociodemographic variables in students of a Mexican state university. Among the main findings, they highlight that most of the students had scored high rates to high grades of emotional exhaustion, which means that they felt exhausted from the fulfillment of the academic responsibilities and could no longer deal with their tasks as students.

In the same way, it is similar to the study by ^{Lee et al. (2020}) who did researches about emotional exhaustion in students and discovered that there was a significant prevalence of emotional exhaustion, in other words, they were emotionally drained by overloaded academic demands and lack of resources to deal with them. This caused a lack of energy, chronic fatigue, apathy, restlessness, nervousness, and feelings of exhaustion and frustration.

Emotional fatigue is a basic response to stress (^{MASLACH, 2003}), it is part of the imbalance between the demands in the academic context and the resources available for the student (^{PRADA; NAVARRO; DOMÍNGUEZ, 2020}) and have negative impacts, since it influences the expectations of success and professional maturity, produces low expectations of concluding the studies, a tendency to quit, and low preparation to face work environment (^{FONTANA, 2011}). Therefore, it is important to know the incidence of emotional exhaustion in students, especially in times of pandemic, in order to organize intervention programs for cases that require them (DOMÍNGUEZ et al., 2018).

Concerning the sociodemographic variables, it was possible to determine that the students’ genre was significantly associated with the level of emotional exhaustion (p<0,05). In this sense, female students showed higher levels of emotional exhaustion than male students. This could be explained by the fact that women tend to externalize their emotional and physiological manifestations produced by stressful situations (^{ESTRADA et al., 2020}). In the same way, they usually assume responsibilities in their families, such as taking care of children and housework (^{ARIAS; HUAMANÍ; CEBALLOS, 2019}). The reported discovery matches some researches that found a higher prevalence of emotional exhaustion in women than in men (^{BARRETO; SALAZAR, 2021}; ^{DOMÍNGUEZ et al., 2018}; ESTRADA; GALLEGOS, 2020; ^{FERNÁNDEZ; LIÉBANA; MORÁN et al., 2017}; ^{HERRERA; MOHAMED; CEPERO, 2016}; ^{LLEDÓ et al., 2014}).

Another important finding is that the students’ age range was also significantly associated with the level of emotional exhaustion (p<0,05). Thus, it was possible to see that younger students had higher levels of emotional exhaustion than older students. This could be due to the fact that younger students are still learning to use their emotional self-regulation resources and strategies to deal with the different stress factors of the college academic activities, while older students have already developed, formal or informally, those resources and strategies. The reported result is similar to the ones achieved by studies that also discovered that students of older age ranges showed levels of emotional exhaustion slightly lower than younger students (^{AGUAYO et al., 2019}; ^{BOLAÑOS; RODRÍGUEZ, 2016}; ^{ESTRADA; GALLEGOS, 2020}).

Among the main limitations of this study are the number of students and the homogeneity which do not allow to generalize results. Therefore, it is recommended that future studies increase the number of participants and include students of other professional careers at the university focused on this study, so the results could be generalized.

5 Closing remarks

Emotional exhaustion is a type of answer to stressful situations that occur in different contexts and is characterized by loss of energy, feelings of emotional and physical exhaustion. Students that suffer from this condition might not fulfill their academic responsibilities and have effects on their quality of life, as well as on their psychological well-being. In this sense, it was possible to discover that students that had high levels of emotional exhaustion, mostly caused by hyperconnection, technological stress, connection problems, fear of infection by Covid-19, and academic precarity they were facing. It was also possible to determine that the prevalence of the variable was significantly associated with the students’ genders and age ranges (p<0,05). Therefore, there is a need for the Psychopedagogic area of the university to detect the students that suffer from emotional fatigue and apply preventive programs to reduce the prevalence of this phenomenon so that students might recover their psychological well-being.