Sport Coaches Burnout as a Threat to Professional Success, Mental Health and Well-Being

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Abstract

The article explores motivational and personality predictors of burnout syndrome in sports coaches. The study involved 183 sports coaches of 20–63 years old (86.9% women; M=41.34±10.56 years), with professional experience for 13.83±9.98 years. Three components of professional burnout ― Emotional exhaustion, Depersonification and Reduction of professional achievements ― were measured with the adapted Maslach professional burnout inventory (Vodopyanova, et al 2008). Motivational aspects were measured with the adapted Ryan and Connell Professional Motivation inventory (Osin et al, 2017). Personal resources ― stress resistance, authenticity and coping strategies ― were measured with the adapted Connor-Davidson Stress Resilience Scale (Nartova-Bochaver et al., 2021), the Moscow Authenticity Scale (Reznichenko et al., 2021) and the adapted Proactive Coping Questionnaire adapted (Belinskaya et al, 2018). The results showed that amotivation and external motives of professional activity are linked positively and internal motivation linked negatively to professional burnout. Furthermore, the links between the types of motivation and the components of burnout in different combinations are mediated by stress resistance, authenticity, and coping skills that prevent burnout. The strongest link of motivation and personal resources was revealed for the Reduction of professional achievements; the weakest link was in the context of Depersonification of a sports coach. Burnout was also positively linked to age and negatively to coaches' experience. The data obtained can be used to form preventive interventions that reduce the burnout of coaches and increase their professional performance, mental health and subjective well-being.

General Information

Keywords: burnout, sport psychology, sport coach, coping behavior, motivation, authenticity, resilience

Journal rubric: Empirical Research

Article type: scientific article

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/cpse.2021100402

Funding. The reported study was funded by grant of The Russian Federation President, project number MK-6241.2021.2

Received: 13.07.2021

Accepted:

For citation: Dovzhik L.M., Bochaver K.A., Reznichenko S.I., Bondarev D.V. Sport Coaches Burnout as a Threat to Professional Success, Mental Health and Well-Being [Elektronnyi resurs]. Klinicheskaia i spetsial'naia psikhologiia = Clinical Psychology and Special Education, 2021. Vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 24–47. DOI: 10.17759/cpse.2021100402. (In Russ., аbstr. in Engl.)

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Information About the Authors

Lidiya M. Dovzhik, PhD in Psychology, Fellow Research, Sport Psychology Laboratory, Moscow Institute of Psychoanalysis, Moscow, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1039-4640, e-mail: lydia.dovzhik@gmail.com

Konstantin A. Bochaver, PhD in Psychology, assistant professor at the psychology chair, head of sport psychology laboratory, Moscow Institute of Psychoanalysis, Moscow, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4976-2271, e-mail: konstantin.bochaver@gmail.com

Sofia I. Reznichenko, PhD in Psychology, Senior Researcher, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7930-8790, e-mail: sofya_292@list.ru

Dmitriy V. Bondarev, PhD, researcher, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8497-8898, e-mail: dmitriy.d.bondarev@jyu.fi

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