The Effects of Stress Management Training Based on Spiritual Therapy Content on Sports Anxiety: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Extended Abstract

Background

Given the periodic nature of badminton and the rapid maneuvers involved in it, a special attention should be given to psychological skills in addition to technical and tactical skills, since psychological skills play a significant role in improving the performance of badminton players. Athletes often experience certain conditions which negatively influence their performance. Moreover, the sport anxiety may lead to the occurrence of various mental and behavioral disorders and, consequently, to poor athletic performance, especially during competitions. Since badminton is a sport requiring instant movements and total concentration, staying calm and minimizing the anxiety and stress levels can greatly and positively contribute to increasing the players’ concentration. Spirituality, often defined as personal beliefs and actions influenced by a relationship with God or a superior power in the world, has been considered as an important and effective factor in promoting the mental health. Reducing stress through spiritual therapy is a type of psycho-educational intervention that helps people practice mental meditation. In this regard, the present study aimed to determine the effects of stress management training based on the content of spiritual therapy on sport anxiety of the females from Mazandaran invited to the selective camp of the country's adult badminton championship.

Methods

This quasi-experimental study was conducted in three phases of pre-test, post-test and follow-up. To achieve the study purpose, 10 people were selected from the statistical population, and then they were randomly and equally assigned to control and experimental groups. Stress management sessions based on spiritual therapy were held for the experimental group in eight sessions, each lasting for an hour and a half, but the control group received no treatment program. Both groups completed the anxiety questionnaire in three stages: baseline, after training, and follow-up. To collect the data, the researcher provided the badminton practitioners with the essential information and instruction about the practices a week before the official start of the tournamentand during the friendly competitions. Furthermore, the researcher explained the various benefits of stress reduction through spiritual activities such as mental and physical tranquility, improvement of the functions, greater concentration, and anxiety reduction. Afterwards, the researcher received the feedbacks from the badminton practitioners about the effects and benefits of stress reduction produced by highlighting spirituality. In this session during which the researcher answered the participants' questions for 20 minutes to remove any existing ambiguities, the emphasis was placed on the reduction of anxiety before and during competitions. Then they were asked to fill out the sport anxiety questionnaire once before the beginning of eight training sessions and once after those treatment sessions. In addition, 45 days after the initiation of the baseline, the questionnaire was administered again to the participants during the follow-up phase. Finally, the pre-test, post-test, and follow-up data were compared both descriptively and inferentially. Sport anxiety scale (Smith, Small and Schutz, 1990) is a multidimensional self-report test designed to measure physical and cognitive anxiety. This test has 21 items in a four-point Likert range (1 to 4) to measure three subscales including physical anxiety (9 items), anxiety (7 items), and lack of concentration (5 items). Subjects were asked to rate how much they experienced the feelings and thoughts expressed in the test phrases before or during the competition. The validity and reliability of this questionnaire in Iran had been investigated by Hadinejad (2012) whose Cronbach’s alpha had been reported to be 0.849.

Results

The results showed that the average age of the participants in the experimental and control groups were 25.3 and 26.7 years, respectively. All five participants in the experimental group were single, while 3% of five participants in the control group were married and 97% were single. The mean scores of sport anxiety of female badminton players in the pre-test, post-test, and follow-up stages were 32.80, 27.60, 26.40 in the experimental group; and 32, 32.20, and 31.60 in the control group, respectively. Before presenting the analysis results of covariance, the presumption of parametric tests was tested. Accordingly, the results of Shapiro-Wilk test showed that the presumption of normality of the data sample distribution was established. The general presumption of variance was also examined by performing the Levene’s test; according to the result, the general presumption of variance was observed although it was not significant.The mean scores of sport anxiety in the two groups were compared through covariance analysis. There was a statistically significant difference between the F values for sport anxiety between pre-tests, post-test, and follow-up phases. Analyzing the covariance revealed that the stress management training program based on spiritual therapy content significantly reduced the sport anxiety of the females from Mazandaran invited to the selective camp of the national championship badminton tournament in both immediate and 45-day-later post-intervention stages.

Conclusion

Spiritual therapy may have been one of the most effective approaches to reducing the symptoms of sport anxiety along with other medical interventions. Our findings confirmed the acceptability of the theoretical issues presented in this study. Developing spiritual skills requires a tendency to seek the meaning of life through the self-exaltation or the need to connect with something beyond self that can reinforce the optimistic nature of the individual.When people learn to disregard the risks and crises, they can overcome the feeling of inefficiency which is one of the causes of anxiety. Factors such as reliance on God, patience, contentment, and a positive outlook on the future can bring peace of mind and, in a more tangible form, reduce anxiety in individual. In fact, spiritually arouses the feeling of peace and adaptation as well as instils values and purposes in individuals. Therefore, athletes having this skill can reduce the probability of failure, control their emotions with adaptive behaviors during competition, and achieve more peace by relying on God to reduce stress, anxiety, and despair. In sum, the results of our study can be considered as an important step in representing the local needs of Iranian athletes and improving their mental health, especially female badminton players who may need more concentration and tranquility in the tournaments.Taking into account our study results, it was recommended that the therapists and specialists should pay attention to the education based on stress management using spiritual therapy content for facilitating the treatment of anxiety and stress as well as other psychological problems. Failure to address simultaneous problems was one of the limitations of the present study, which reduced the generalizability of research results. Also, the failure to evaluate the underlying factors’ roles in the effectiveness of this intervention was another limitation of this study.