Athlete burnout and mental and physical health: A three-wave longitudinal study of direct and reciprocal effects

Burnout is a mental health-related problem in athletes that may also be linked to further adverse mental and physical health problems. However, longitudinal research in this area is scarce. The studies that do exist have yet to test possible reciprocal effects while accounting for the multilevel structure of longitudinal data. Consequently, the aim of the present study was to examine longitudinal and reciprocal relationships between athlete burnout and a number of health variables. To do so, we used a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model to disaggregate between- and within-person effects. Based on existing literature, we chose to focus on physical symptoms, illness, depressive symptoms, sleep disruptions, and life satisfaction as the health variables of interest. Following a pre-registered protocol with open data, materials, and code, we recruited a sample of 267 competitive athletes who completed measures at three timepoints over six months. At the between-person level, we found athlete burnout to be associated with all examined health variables. At the within-person level, emotional and physical exhaustion was found to predict increases in depressive symptoms, sleep disruptions were found to predict increases in devaluation, and life satisfaction was found to predict decreases in total burnout, exhaustion, and reduced sense of accomplishment. The findings demonstrate that athlete burnout increases the risk for certain health consequences such as depressive symptoms, and reciprocal findings suggest that sleep and satisfaction-based interventions (e.g., sleep hygiene training and positive psychology interventions) may be able to protect against burnout development.