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

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.