Indicators Of Burnout In College Athletes

Abstract

PURPOSE: To describe the proportion of burnout levels in college athletes employing a psychological instrument and compare them by sport type and sex. METHODS: 236 college athletes from a high performance program (122 from individual sports and 124 from team sports and; 76 women and 160 men) were evaluated. Trained psychologists applied the Sport Burnout Inventory-Reviewed (IBD-R, in Spanish), conformed by 19 items that evaluate 3 Burnout dimensions in athletes: Emotional Exhaustion (EE), Depersonalization (D) and Reduced Personal Realization (RPR); finally, it brings to a Total Burnout Qualification, which let the evaluator know the burnout level in the evaluated subject. The results were classified in four categories: “Low risk” (≤50), “Moderated risk” (≥51 <60), “High risk” (≥61 <70) and “With burnout” (>70). The frequencies and proportions were counted and compared by sport type and sex. RESULTS: Team sports showed lower proportion of “Low risk” to suffer burnout in the RPR factor than individual sports (p=0.03). As well, a trend for higher proportion of “With burnout” in EE was observed for individual than team sports (p=0.06). Conversely, a trend for higher proportion of “Moderated risk” in RPR was observed for team than individual sports (p=0.06). On the other hand, statistically significant differences were found in three factors between females and males. Males showed higher prevalence of “Low risk” in EE compared to females (p=0.006), also females presented higher proportion of “Moderated risk” to suffer burnout in the EE indicator than males (p=0.02). In the D factor, males reported a higher proportion of “High risk” to suffer burnout than females (p=0.03) (Table 1). CONCLUSIONS: The results showed that both individual sports and female athletes presented higher proportions of risk to suffer burnout than team sports and male athletes, respectively. However, a deeper evaluation is suggested to confirm the data and make a Burnout profile in college athletes.Table 1: Proportion of burnout indicators by sport type and sex.