The Associations Between Psychological Distress and Academic Burnout: A Mediation and Moderation Analysis.

BACKGROUND

Psychological distress is reported to be associated with academic burnout in students while the mediation and moderation effect of resilience and personality are less explored.

PURPOSE

The current study was designed to estimate the mediating effect of resilience and the moderation effect of personality between psychological distress and academic burnout.

PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS

A total of 613 students were enrolled from two medical universities between December 2020 and January 2021. They were administered with Academic Burnout Scale, 10-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI). Latent profile analysis and moderated mediation analysis were performed.

RESULTS

Three personalities were identified and named as resilient (13.4%), over-controlled (50.2%) and under-controlled (36.4%). Resilience significantly mediated the relationship between psychological distress and academic burnout while personality significantly moderated the relationship between psychological distress and resilience.

CONCLUSION

Resilience and personality may be two important mediators between psychological distress and academic burnout. More attentions should be paid to students with under-controlled personality and resilience-enhancing interventions could be developed to prevent or alleviate academic burnout in future research.