Author: Megan E. BrentPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cognitive therapy
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
Abstract: The main purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a cognitive-behavioral stress management intervention designed to help collegiate student-athletes understand and utilize various techniques to manage stress better and regulate arousal to achieve optimal performance. The final sample consisted of 30 participants divided into a treatment and a wait-list control group. The treatment group met for one hour per week for a five-week intervention, where they learned how to use skills such as relaxation, imagery, and self-talk. Both treatment and wait-list control group members completed measures of competitive sport anxiety, trait anxiety, life stress, coping skills, and positive and negative affect at pre, post, and follow-up testing. Competitive anxiety was measured using the Sport Competition Anxiety Test. Other measures included the Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Life Events Survey for Collegiate Athletes, the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory, and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. MANCOVAs using life stress as the covariate were conducted for competitive anxiety, trait anxiety, coping skills, and positive and negative affect to explore differences between the groups for the entire sample across test times. The results indicated that the treatment and control groups differed significantly as expected on both competitive anxiety and negative affect at follow-up testing. The differences between groups for the remaining variables were non-significant. The implications for these results are discussed, as are suggestions for future research in this area.