Protective role of mindfulness, self‐compassion and psychological flexibility on the burnout subtypes among psychology and nursing undergraduate students

Abstract

Aims To explore the relationship between mindfulness, self‐compassion and psychological flexibility, and the burnout subtypes in university students of the Psychology and Nursing degrees, and to analyse possible risk factors for developing burnout among socio‐demographic and studies‐related characteristics. Design Cross‐sectional study conducted on a sample of 644 undergraduate students of Nursing and Psychology from two Spanish universities. Methods The study was conducted between December 2015 and May 2016. Bivariate Pearson's correlations were computed to analyse the association between mindfulness facets, self‐compassion and psychological flexibility, and levels of burnout. Multivariate linear regression models and bivariate and multivariate binary logistic regressions were also computed. Results The three subtypes of burnout presented significant correlations with psychological flexibility, self‐compassion and some mindfulness facets. Psychological flexibility, self‐compassion and the mindfulness facets of observing and acting with awareness were significantly associated to burnout. Among the risk factors, ‘year of study’ was the only variable to show significantly higher risk for every burnout subtype. Conclusion The significant associations found between mindfulness, self‐compassion, psychological flexibility and burnout levels underline the need of including these variables as therapeutic targets when addressing the burnout syndrome in university students. Impact. Undergraduate students, especially those of health sciences, often experience burnout. This study delves into the protective role of some psychological variables: mindfulness, self‐compassion and psychological flexibility. These should be considered as potentially protective skills for developing burnout, and therefore, undergraduate students could be trained on these abilities to face their studies and their future profession to prevent experiencing burnout syndrome.

How mindfulness, self-compassion, and experiential avoidance are related to perceived stress in a sample of university students

“…In contrast, perceived stress was negatively correlated with self-compassion and mindfulness, which, in turn, could be seen as protective factors. The same scenario was shown regarding the association between experiential avoidance, mindfulness, and self-compassion with burnout dimensions in our previous study [33]. These results can be explained taking the emotion dysregulation model of psychological distress into account [45], which posits that the ways individuals experience and respond to emotions can lead or not to psychological distress.…”

“…Finally, trait mindfulness showed a non-significant additive explanatory power in the regression, but when self-compassion scores did not account for mindfulness and overidentification items, mindfulness was shown as a significant explanatory variable inversely associated with perceived stress. Similarly, experiential avoidance significantly explained the levels 'overload' and 'lack of development' burnout dimensions to a greater degree than self-compassion and mindfulness in our previous study [33]. Thus, both results may be further evidence of a stronger connection between psychopathology and experiential avoidance than between psychopathology and other third-waves constructs (e.g., mindfulness or compassion) in university students.…”

“…Our findings provide further evidence on the association between experiential avoidance and psychological disturbances [47] and would indicate that stressed students present a tendency to escape or avoid private events (e.g., emotions or memories), regardless of their sociodemographic and academic profile. In this line, previous studies have reported significant associations between experiential avoidance and depression or suicidality in Taiwanese university students [26], as well as between experiential avoidance and burnout syndrome in Spanish undergraduate nursing students [33]. Experiential avoidance would also seem to moderate the positive relationship between anxiety sensitivity and perceived stress in a large community sample of university students from the United States [48].…”

“…In this sense, Martı ´nez-Rubio et al [33] showed that experiential avoidance, self-compassion and the mindfulness facets of observing and acting with awareness were significantly related to lower burnout symptom ('overload', 'lack of development', and 'neglect') levels in a sample of 644 undergraduate nursing and psychology students, but the potential influence of sociodemographic and academic factors in that association was not controlled. Results showed that experiential avoidance was the strongest predictor of the burnout dimensions of 'overload' and 'lack of development', meanwhile the dimension of 'neglect' was better explained by acting with awareness [33].…”

Feasibility, Effectiveness, and Mechanisms of a Brief Mindfulness- and Compassion-Based Program to Reduce Stress in University Students: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial

“…However, the emerging theoretical literature about the pathways of change of MBPs also points out the potential role of related variables such as decentering (i.e., the ability to observe thoughts and feelings in a detached manner), self-compassion (i.e., the desire to alleviate one’s own suffering), and psychological flexibility (i.e., the ability to act following personal values when experiencing negative internal circumstances), as mechanisms of action [ 15 , 20 ]. In this regard, experiential avoidance (the opposite of psychological flexibility) has been found to be a significant predictor of burnout among psychology and nursing undergraduate students [ 21 ]. Finally, compassion is implicitly taught in MBSR and MBCT, although these programs might enhance their effects on this variable by including specific content and compassion-based meditations [ 22 ].…”