Burnout among high school students is linked to their telomere length and relatedness with peers

Figures & data

Table 1. Descriptive statistics (n = 82) and bivariate correlations (n = 64, listwise deletion).

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
1. School burnout-t1	--
2. School burnout-t2	0.778	--
3. Telomere length	−0.254	−0.278	--
4. Body mass index	0.234	0.059	0.143	--
5. Stressful life events	−0.357	−0.366	0.353	0.035	--
6. Relatedness with peers -t1	−0.559	−0.404	0.304	−0.334	0.223	--
7. Relatedness with peers -t2	−0.382	−0.411	0.247	−0.206	0.145	0.754	--
M	3.04	3.00	2.47	21.40	−1.05	3.24	3.32
SD	0.96	1.02	0.19	4.34	0.80	0.83	0.70
min	1.11	1.00	2.13	12.84	−2.00	1.00	1.00
max	5.11	5.00	3.03	33.51	0.60	4.00	4.00
% Missing	0.0	17.1	3.7	1.2	0.0	0.0	17.1

XX-t1: first measurement point (baseline), XX-t2 : second measurement point; SD: standard deviation. Bivariate associations were calculated with Pearson’s R.

Table 2. Standardized regression coefficients and confidence intervals for three multilevel models on the relations between telomere length (TL), relatedness, and school burnout (n = 142 obs. on level 1).

	Model 1: random intercepts (RIs)		Model 2: RIs and random time slopes		Model 3: RIs, random time slopes and relatedness as predictor		Model 4: RIs and relatedness as predictor
	β	90%-CI	β	90%-CI	β	90%-CI	β	90% CI
Level 1: 24.9% of the total SBI variance within students
Time	−0.025	[–0.171, 0.119]	−0.014	[–0.111, 0.096]	.020	[–0.049, 0.119]	0.021	[–0.128, 0.137]
Relatedness					−0.396	[–0.708, −0.107]	−0.357	[–0.524, −0.152]
R^2	0.4%		21.1%		34.0%		13.5%
Level 2: 75.1% of the total SBI variance between students
TL	−0.190	[–.374, −.028]	−0.110	[–0.216, −0.002]	−0.070	[–0.183, −.038]	−0.122	[–0.290, 0.060]
BMI	0.161	[0.004, 0.334]	0.222	[.056, 0.387]	0.158	[–0.002, 0.330]	0.093	[0.074, 0.252]
SLE	−0.269	[–0.093, −0.462]	−0.150	[–0.039, −0.270]	−0.141	[–0.028, −0.264]	−0.246	[–0.063, −0.425]
Relatedness					−0.301	[–.509, −0.113]	−0.357	[–0.556, −0.149]
BMI → SBI slopes			−0.231	[–0.545, 0.034]	−0.184	[–0.485, 0.073]
SBI intercepts ←→ slopes			−0.698	[–0.871, −0.335]	−0.672	[-0.881, −0.148]
R^2	38.7%		15.1%		21.1%		42.5%
DIC	259.3		90.2		326.2		458.7

Regression coefficients for time in models 2 and 3 are averaged over clusters. SBI: school burnout inventory; TL : telomere length; BMI : body mass index; SLE: stressful life events. “BMI → SBI slopes” refers to the effect of BMI on SBI random slopes; and “SBI intercepts ←→ slopes” refers to the correlation between SBI random intercepts and slopes; R² : proportion of variance explained; DIC: Deviance information criterion.

Data availability statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, upon a serious request.