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.