Burnout and Coping Perceptions of Volleyball Players Throughout an Annual Sport Season

Abstract

Burnout is a psychological syndrome of reaction to chronic stress that occurs in athletes who feel exhausted by a sport activity that was previously pleasurable and enjoyable. One technique to prevent and control the syndrome is through coping, which is the ability to deal with stressful situations. In contrast to traditional cross-sectional approaches, this study aimed to investigate burnout and coping strategy characteristics over time and to analyze the relationship between burnout dimensions and coping strategies. Fifty-four high-level volleyball athletes (twenty-eight men and twenty-six women, age M = 25.57, SD = 4.72, range 18-35) completed paper-and-pencil measures of burnout and coping four times throughout a sport season. The Friedman test presented a significant increase in the reduced sense of athletic accomplishment (X2 = 20.58; p < 0.01) and sport devaluation (X2 = 19.83; p < 0.01) perceptions during the season. However, no coping differences were observed through the longitudinal analysis. Burnout dimensions showed a moderate inverse correlation to confidence/motivation at all measurement points during the season. Overall, the findings suggest that burnout perceptions increase as the season progresses, highlighting the relevance for the periodization of burnout prevention and control

The impact of stress, recovery and coping on burnout symptoms of young elite table-tennis players: A prospective multilevel study

“…In particular, T1 level 2 DgOC significantly negatively predicted T2 reduced accomplishment whereas T1 level 2 TOC marginally significantly positively predicted T2 physical and emotional exhaustion. These two results are in contrast with crosssectional (Nicholls and Polman, 2007;Doron and Martinent, 2017) and longitudinal (Madigan et al, 2020;Pires and Ugrinowitsch, 2021) literature showing that DgOC is generally related to dysfunctional athletes' outcomes whereas TOC is associated with functional athletes' outcomes. As such, future research should test again the prospective relationships between coping and athlete burnout to see whether the present results emerge in other samples, or whether there were results specific to the current sample.…”

“…Past studies have generally reported positive associations of the use of TOC with adaptive outcomes such as positive affect or sport performance and the use of DgOC with maladaptive outcomes such as negative affect ( Gaudreau and Blondin, 2002 ; Nicholls and Polman, 2007 ; Doron and Martinent, 2021 ). Moreover, previous longitudinal studies have highlighted the critical role that coping plays in the development of athlete burnout ( Madigan et al, 2020 ; Pires and Ugrinowitsch, 2021 ). Results of this literature showed that the use of DgOC was linked to an increase in athlete burnout over time, while TOC was unrelated or negatively associated with changes in burnout over time.…”

Occupational burnout among teachers: is it seasonal?

“…We did not find a similar study that would address seasonal differences in occupational burnout among teachers, but some studies in athletes point to significantly reduced sense of accomplishment by the end of the sporting season and to the burnout syndrome as a chronic process ( 28 ). Other studies show that exposure of social educators to violence or bullying at the workplace increases occupational burnout within 12 months ( 29 ) or even shorter intervals, with long-term cumulative effects ( 30 ).…”

Burnout Syndrome in Selectable Athletes for the Brazilian Handball Team—Children Category

“…These results may have occurred because they are child athletes who develop their skills in other activities and have a less intense period of training and competitions, unlike high performance professional athletes, who dedicate themselves exclusively to their sport [ 32 ]. In this context, a study with professional athletes from the volleyball league indicates an increase in the perception of burnout by the athletes as the cycle of competitions advances [ 33 ], reinforcing that burnout is a chronic process [ 34 ].…”