Connections between academic burnout, resilience, and psychological well‐being in nursing students: A longitudinal study

Abstract

Aims: The aim of this study was to explore the longitudinal associations between academic burnout and resilience and psychological well‐being, and the stability of these variables in a sample of university nursing students. Background: Nursing students frequently suffer academic burnout, which is brought on by different situations experienced during the training process and that can concern his psychological well‐being. Resilience is a personal resource that allows adverse situations to be handled in a successful way. Design: Longitudinal design. Methods: Data were collected at two moments separated by 18 months (2014–2016), with 218 students at T1 and 113 at T2. At each time a questionnaire was given to them, with questions about socioeconomic demographics and three validated scales to measure academic burnout, resilience, and psychological well‐being. Results: The three dimensions that make up academic burnout remained steady over time, while resilience increased and psychological well‐being improved. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed the longitudinal effect of emotional exhaustion at T1 and at T2 they showed the longitudinal effect of resilience on psychological well‐being at T2. The inverse hierarchical regression analyses did not reveal significant relationships for any of the variables measured at T2 in connection with psychological well‐being measured at T1. Conclusions: Emotional exhaustion was the most relevant dimension of academic burnout when predicting psychological well‐being in the analysed sample. Moreover, resilience has an important positive effect on psychological well‐being in the analysed sample. The practical implications of the results are discussed from the perspective of academic training and some recommendations are given for future research in this field.