Perfectionism and Allied Health Professional Training: The Role Psychological Flexibility in Burnout and Depression

There is a high prevalence of depression and burnout in allied health students, emphasising the need to understand predictors of these outcomes. An understanding of the poor mental health outcomes in allied health students could be extended by considering the effects of perfectionism, a transdiagnostic process that is a risk- and maintaining factor across psychopathology. However, perfectionism as a transdiagnostic process needs more exploration, particularly in how rigidity and inflexibility in pursuing high standards impact depression and burnout in allied health students. This study investigates how psychological inflexibility (rigid and narrowed ways of responding to internal experiences) may further clarify understandings of perfectionism as a transdiagnostic process. It was hypothesised that high psychological inflexibility – high experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion and low present moment awareness and committed action – would account for how maladaptive perfectionism is associated with depressive symptoms and burnout. A sample of 187 allied health students completed an online survey. Mediational analyses found that the perfectionism-depression and perfectionism-burnout relationships were mediated by psychological inflexibility; however, these relationships were explained by differing facets of psychological inflexibility. Experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion explained how maladaptive perfectionism led to depressive symptoms. In contrast, committed action and cognitive fusion explained how maladaptive perfectionism related to burnout. This study provides support for perfectionism as a transdiagnostic process understood through a psychological flexibility approach and indicates a need for a multidimensional approach to psychological inflexibility to further clarify relationships with psychopathology.