Relationship between resilience, optimism, and burnout in Pan-American athletes

Abstract

AimA series of knowledge has been developed on burnout syndrome in the sports context that has allowed to generate a solid theoretical structure that requires new contributions to delve into those aspects that have been less addressed, as is the case of optimism and resilience when it comes to linking them to the syndrome in top-performance athletes. For this purpose, the Burnout Inventory for Athletes (IBD-r), the Resilience Scale adapted to Spanish, and the Life Orientation Scale-Revised (LOT-R) for optimism were used.MethodsFrom this perspective, the study was approached with 121 Uruguayan athletes who participated in the last Pan-American Games, assuming practically all the subjects who have this level of sport (142) considering gender and type of sport.ResultsThe results indicate that 67% of the sample presents burnout symptoms for the emotional exhaustion dimension, and moderate resilience and optimism. Although there are no significant differences attributable to gender or type of sport, this contribution allows us to continue focusing on future work and further analysis. The type of sport presented statistically significant differences in relation to the personal competence dimension and the type of sport.ConclusionResilience and optimism obtained a clear influence on the occurrence of burnout, in a statistically negative sense, showing themselves as interesting prevention strategies for future lines of research, where it is essential to design interventions that teach emotional skills to manage adversity and prevent burnout.

Temporal stability of optimism and pessimism (LOT-R) over 6 years in the general population

“…Like concepts such as self-efficacy, resilience, resilient coping, and sense of coherence, optimism can be understood as a resource variable that buffers aversive life events. Optimism is associated with mental and physical health ( Schou-Bredal et al, 2019 ), quality of life ( Liu et al, 2021 ; Marton et al, 2022 ), education and physical activity ( Craig et al, 2023 ), positive adjustment to stressful life events and coping ( Ramírez-Maestre et al, 2019 ), life satisfaction ( Cerezo et al, 2022 ), spirituality ( Ciria-Suarez et al, 2021 ), low levels of anxiety and depression ( Faye-Schjøll and Schou-Bredal, 2019 ; Menéndez-Aller et al, 2020 ), low risk of burnout ( Tutte-Vallarino et al, 2022 ), low perceived risk for COVID-19 ( Schou-Bredal et al, 2021 ), and even lower mortality ( Liu et al, 2022a ). The relevance of optimism has been shown in several clinical areas such as heart diseases ( Huffman et al, 2019 ), cancer ( Liu et al, 2022b ; Hinz et al, 2023 ), gynecology ( Morán-Sánchez et al, 2021 ), obstetrics ( Giangiordano et al, 2020 ), and chronic pain ( Esteve et al, 2018 ).…”