Does self-compassion protect university students against burnout?
Background:
Studying at university is a time of learning which ends successfully in most cases, but can also include disappointment. An important part of being academically successful and mentally healthy is being able to cope with failures and disappointments.
Objectives:
Self-compassion describes the way people think about themselves in critical situations and how they manage these situations. The work presented examines two burnout preventive mechanisms involving self-compassion. The hypothesis is that self-compassion activates social support which in turn helps prevent burnout. Self-compassion can help bring about a modification of requirements at the university so as to stave off burnout. The empirically confirmed relationship between self-compassion and burnout is also modelled for university students.
Materials and methods:
In order to investigate the hypothesis, 809 students at the Freie University Berlin were asked to fill out an online questionnaire on social support, university requirements, self-compassion and burnout.
Results:
Using structural equation modeling, both the indirect effect of self-compassion on university requirements as well as the effect of social support on burnout were examined. In the second model the indirect effects remained significant after the direct effect of self-compassion on burnout was added to the first model, thus confirming the importance of self-compassion as a preventive factor.
Conclusion:
Self-compassion enables students to influence their study situation in such a way as to reduce their risk of burnout.
