BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Sport Psychology
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1548583
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Burnout Spectrum in Schools and Sports: Students, Teachers, Athletes, and Coaches at RiskView all 10 articles
Basic psychological needs satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, and studying sports protect university student-athletes from burnout: Insights from Latvia
Provisionally accepted
- 1Riga Stradiņš University, Riga, Latvia
- 2University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia
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The study explored the prediction of athlete burnout by basic psychological needs satisfaction in sports, combined with the intrinsic motivation in sports and sociodemographic characteristics of university student-athletes. The protective effects of both psychological predictors were expected. The participants were 219 university student-athletes aged 19 to 33 (M = 22.3 and SD = 3.2 years) who participated in sports from recreational (38%) up to World/Olympic (9%) levels, with a mean sports experience of 10.1 (SD = 5.2) years. The study used three surveys, presented in Latvian: Sports Motivation Scale-II, Basic Psychological Needs in Exercise Scale, and Athlete Burnout Questionnaire. Higher need satisfaction was the main predictor of lower burnout and a higher sense of accomplishment in the frame of SEM. Higher intrinsic motivation, participants’ age, and studying sports also predicted lower burnout and competing at World/Olympic level predicted a higher sense of accomplishment. The bifactor model confirmed athlete burnout as a syndrome integrating its specific components. As the main protective factor, psychological needs satisfaction in sports should be prioritized in university student-athlete training.
Keywords: Basic psychological needs, intrinsic motivation, burnout, university student-athletes, competition level
Received: 19 Dec 2024; Accepted: 28 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Vilks and Kolesovs. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Svens Vilks, Riga Stradiņš University, Riga, Latvia
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