Competitive Anxiety And Burnout: A Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Burnout has become an important topic in people's life & life quality. This is a personal and complex concept that includes different expectations, perceptions and exhaustion of physical, psychological and social situations. This study investigated the changes in competitive anxiety, coping and athlete burnout during a season. A hundred and fifty- six female (Xage =21.28 yr, SD =5.34) and 147 male (X-age=22.77 yr, SD=5.92) totally 303 volleyball players (X-age=22 yr, SD=5.66) voluntarily participated in this study. All participants were asked to respond to Athlete Burnout Questionnaire, Sport Competition Anxiety Test and Inventory of Coping Strategies in Competitive Sports. Correlation analysis and Repeated Measures ANOVA assessed the relationship and changes between the variables during the season. Results indicated that athletes' competitive anxiety levels, burnout levels and coping strategies scores change over the three measures. Like this outcome, at the beginning of the season burnout positively correlated with competitive anxiety, but negatively correlated with coping strategies. While in the middle of the season, there is only positive correlation between burnout and competitive anxiety; at the end of the season there is still positive relation between burnout and competitive anxiety and addition to this, competitive anxiety showed positive correlation with coping strategies. Repeated measures ANOVA showed that there were statistically significant differences in competitive anxiety, coping strategies and athlete burnout between three measures. In conclusion, it can be said that, competitive anxiety and athlete burnout are connected during the season.