Resilience, optimism, and burnout in high-performance youth athletes
Download this article Tomás Trujillo Santana *, José Luis López-Morales **, Jeffry Romero *, Ana I. Peinado Portero ***, Hugo Zepeda Munguia * and Enrique Javier Garcés De Los Fayos ****
(*) Department of Sports Psychology of CODE, Jalisco State Government, Mexico
(**) Department of Basic Psychology and Methodology. Faculty of Psychology and Speech Therapy. University of Murcia, Spain
(***) Department of Psychiatry and Social Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Speech Therapy. University of Murcia. Spain
(****) The Department of Personality, Assessment, and Psychological Treatment. Faculty of Psychology and Speech Therapy
Citation
Trujillo Santana, T., López-Morales, J.L., Romero, J., Peinado Portero, A.I., Zepeda Munguia, H., Garcés De Los Fayos, E.J. (2023). Resilience, optimism, and burnout in high-performance youth athletes. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 54(5), 434-450. doi:10.7352/IJSP.2023.54.434
Abstract
Background. High-performance sport’s main goal is for athletes to perform at their maximum level in order to attain maximum possible success. Enhancing performance is one of the most studied areas in sport and performance psychology, with resilience being one of the most prominent variables in these studies. Objective: The investigation aims to study resilience as well as its relationship with optimism levels and burnout syndrome using a sample of 12- to 17-year-old high-performance youth athletes. Method. 308 athletes between 12 and 17 years of age from Mexico participated in this research. After obtaining the authorization, resilience, optimism and burnout syndrome were measured. Results demonstrate that athletes that scored high on resilience and optimism presented lower levels of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. Conclusion Resilience and optimism appear to be protective factors against developing burnout. Designing and applying intervention programs that allow youth athletes to develop these resources and coping strategies to face the stressful situations high-performance sport presents appears to be important to avoid the development of burnout syndrome or illnes
Keywords: Sport psychology, performance, resilience, optimism, burnout