Stress and Burnout among Athletic Training Students and Athletic Trainers

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2023 in the subject Health - Sports science, , language: English, abstract: This study aims to determine the causes of stress and burnout among athletic training students and athletic trainers and how these problems affect their professional careers. Besides, the study seeks to establish the level of burnout among athletic training students. Additionally, the study aims to establish the solution for the issues identified and recommends strategies that athletic training programs should implement to mitigate stress and burnout. Role strain, work-family conflict, and professional socialization are the leading cause of stress and burnout among athletic training students. Task incongruence, role conflict, ambiguity, overload, and incompetency were the identified aspects of strain in ATs. The ambiguity in the athletic training profession is connected to insufficient specificity, while role conflict occurs in a situation where an individual is assigned to multiple roles at the same time. In essence, an individual's values and beliefs may not be compatible with professional job demands, causing role incongruence (the situation where description does not align with an individual's personality). Nineteen articles deeply examine the effect of role strain in athletic training students' profession. Work-family conflict is the disturbance emanating from the profession's family responsibilities, impacting their professional accomplishment. Fourteen researchers examined this problem extensively in the reviewed research articles, and it was determined to be a potential cause of burnout among athletic training students. High travel demands and long working hours are the two causes of work-family conflicts identified in the study. Besides, delayed or rescheduled games were determined to contribute to work-family conflict among the athletic trainers. The study found professional socialization and burnout among athletic training students closely related. Role revolution, gaining stability, formal preparation, envisioning the role, and organizational entry are the five essential phases of professional specialization in sports medicine.