Burnout Levels and Mood States Among Athletic Training Students in Professional Master's Programs

Abstract

Context: Professional master's athletic training students are at high risk for changes in mood state and an increase in burnout levels during an academic semester due to stressors including academic workload, clinical expectations, and/or research projects, among other factors. Objective: To determine mood states and burnout levels among professional master's students during the middle and end of an academic semester. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Online survey. Patients or Other Participants: The sample consisted of first and second year professional master's students (males=11, females=30, age = 23.39 [plus or minus] 1.44 years) who attended Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education accredited athletic training programs. Interventions: The independent variable was time (midsemester and end of semester). We sent the link to the online survey via e-mail to program directors and asked them to forward it to all students in the professional master's programs they led. Main Outcome Measure(s): The dependent variables were the subsets of burnout (depersonalization [DP], personal accomplishment, and emotional exhaustion [EE]) along with the overall mood state score. We used the modified 22 item Maslach Burnout Inventory and the modified 40 item Profile of Mood States. Results: Burnout scores from the personal accomplishment subscale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory were statistically different between the 2 time points (X[superscript 2, subscript 1] =5.765, P= 0.016) in comparison to DP (X[superscript 2, subscript 1]=0.027, P= 0.869) and EE (X[superscript 2, subscript 1]=1.256, P= 0.262). For Profile of Mood States scores, the composite total mood disturbance score was not statistically different between the 2 time points (X[superscript 2, subscript 1]=0.200, P = 0.655). Conclusions: Our findings indicated that, as a whole, high level stressors were reported from lack of personal accomplishment. Clinically, mood states were reported to not change from midsemester to end of the semester.