Does Self-Compassion Precede Lower Burnout in Sports Coaches? A Within-Person Panel Study

Self-compassion is consistently associated with lower burnout, mostly in between-person comparisons. This within-person panel study estimates whether, within each coach, higher-than-usual self-compassion precedes lower burnout. Data came from an open panel of Swiss sports coaches (Ackeret et al., 2022a) across three waves at baseline, 3 months, and 6 months (N = 422). After longitudinal invariance tests, a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model separated between-person differences from within-person change. The standardized within-person path for Hypothesis 1, from self-compassion at baseline to burnout at 3 months, was β = 0.29, 95% CI [−0.47, 1.06]. Self-compassion is not yet established as a target for burnout-prevention trials in coaches.