An Explorative Study of Possible Demographic Variables, Sports-Related Situational Variables, and Social Variables as Predictors of Athlete Burnout and Its Core Dimensions among German Non-Elite Endurance Athletes

Sport science has focused more and more on burnout in sports. Up to now, however, there are some studies that deal with burnout among coaches, but there are very few that deal with burnout among athletes. This article provides an overview on the topic and presents data from a cross-sectional study of 785 non-elite endurance athletes regarding possible predictors of athlete burnout. Burnout was assessed with a German version of the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire (ABQ; Raedeke & Smith, 2001), and multiple regressions were performed using burnout and its sub-dimensions as outcomes. 1.3% of the sample reported high levels of athlete burnout; various situational and demographic variables (e.g. training hours per week, gender, main sports) could be identified as determinants of the phenomenon. These results support the conditional theory (e.g. Coakley, 1992), which links burnout to environmental factors and sees stress as a symptom rather than a causal factor of burnout.