O papel mediador da dificuldade na regulação emocional entre comportamento de sono e burnout em atletas de modalidades coletivas

Abstract

Sleep quality has been recognized as an important strategy for physical, cognitive, and emotional recovery in response to the demands of the sports context. However, athletes frequently face problems related to sleep cycles, travel, screen use, and training and competition schedules. These factors may impair sports performance and mental health, thereby increasing the risk of developing burnout syndrome. Difficulties in emotion regulation may constitute a potential mediating mechanism in this relationship, as poor sleep behavior is associated with emotional dysregulation and, consequently, with the emergence of psychological syndromes such as burnout. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the mediating role of difficulties in emotion regulation between sleep behavior and burnout in athletes from team sports. A total of 112 athletes (80 men and 32 women) from team sports basketball (n = 37), soccer (n = 21), handball (n = 32), and volleyball (n = 12) participated in the study. The mean age was 24.60 ± 6.49 years, with an average sports practice time of approximately 4.82 years. Inclusion criteria were age ≥ 16 years, at least one year of practice in the sport, and a regular training routine of at least two sessions per week. Data collection was conducted in person, following prior contact with the teams’ coaching staff, during training sessions and competitions. Participants completed the following instruments: a Sociodemographic Questionnaire, the Athlete Sleep Behavior Questionnaire (ASBQ), the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire (ABQ), and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS-16). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a mediation model, controlling for age and sex as covariates. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS software (version 25), with a significance level set at p < 0.05 and a 95% confidence interval. Descriptive results indicated a high prevalence of poor sleep behaviors (77.70%), but moderately low perceptions of burnout (2.14 ± 0.55) and difficulties in emotion regulation (33.10 ± 12.90). The mediation model demonstrated that difficulties in emotion regulation fully mediated the association between sleep behavior and burnout, independently of age and sex (B = 0.0146; 95% BCa CI = 0.007–0.0242). In conclusion, difficulties in emotion regulation as a mediator between sleep behavior and burnout in team sport sthletes. This study contributes to the advancement of the literature by investigating explanatory mechanisms underlying the relationship between sleep and burnout and suggests that strategies aimed at promoting sleep hygiene and emotion regulation may serve as protective factors and help attenuate burnout symptoms in team sport athletes.