Competitive anxiety in athletes: Brazilian version of Sport Anxiety Scale-2 and analysis of associated variables

Author(s)

Viviane Vedovato Silva Rocha

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Ribeirão Preto.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (PCARP/BC)
• Defense date: 2018-11-30

Examining board members

Flavia de Lima Osorio; Cristiano Roque Antunes Barreira; Clarissa Pinto Pizarro de Freitas; Sonia Regina Loureiro

• Advisor: Flavia de Lima Osorio; Diogo Araújo de Sousa

Abstract

Competitive anxiety is an emotional reaction, manifested at a somatic and / or cognitive level, that regularly appears before or during sports competitions, and can have a significant impact on athletes performance. In view of the scarcity of validated instruments available for the evaluation of competitive anxiety-trait in the Brazilian context, this study aimed to perform the cross-cultural adaptation of the Sport Anxiety Scale-2 (SAS-2) to Brazilian Portuguese, to study its psychometric properties and to analyze the variables associated with high levels of competitive trait-anxiety. For this, the study was divided into: a) Phase 1 - Translation and adaptation process of SAS-2: translations, synthesis of translations, back-translation, review by the Expert Committee, pre-test and submission to the main author of the original article for final evaluation; b) Phase 2 - Psychometric study of the SAS-2: sample composed of 238 professional and amateur athletes from 13 years of age, practicing different sports modalities; c) Phase 3 - Analysis of the levels of competitive trait-anxiety according to sociodemographic characteristics, sports practice and coping of the sample. The data were collected individually and analyzed quantitatively, adopting for all analyzes level of significance p<=0.05. The process of cross-cultural adaptation resulted in the version named \"Sports Anxiety Scale-2\", being appreciated by the author of the original instrument and considered the official Portuguese version of Brazil. Regarding the psychometric evidence, the results suggested by the Exploratory Factor Analysis were incompatible with the structure proposed by the original model and with the concepts established by the Multidimensional Anxiety Theory. In the Confirmatory Factor Analysis, it was possible to achieve adequate adjustment indexes by adding a correlation between the errors of items 6 and 12 (CFI = 0.97, TLI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.08, WRMR = 1.04). As for the convergent and divergent validity, SAS-2 subscales presented positive and strong correlation coefficients with CSAI-2R (r = 0.52 - 0.82), weak to moderate with IDATE-T (r = 0.49 - 0.59), weak with SPIN (r = 0.29-0.41) and weak to moderate with PHQ-9 (r = 0.49 - 0.56). SAS-2 was also able to discriminate participants with and without social anxiety, general trait-anxiety and depressive symptoms, attesting its discriminative validity. According to the ROC curve analysis, the cutoff point that best balances sensitivity and specificity indices is 29. The internal consistency (? = 0.73 - 0.86) and the test-retestreliability (ICC = 0.73 - 0.80) were satisfactory. There was evidence of an association between high levels of competitive anxiety-trait and female athletes, without partner, with more than 12 years of schooling, individual sportsmen, amateurs, less experienced and trained fewer days a week. Regarding coping strategies, the study found significant difference only in relation to automation. In view of the results obtained, it was concluded that the Brazilian version of SAS- 2 met the requirements of cross-cultural adaptation and showed satisfactory psychometric evidence and could be used in the Brazilian context. In addition, knowing which variables are most related to high levels of anxiety-competitive trait can contribute to the design of more effective preventive and interventional actions. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 15/24604-8 - Competitive anxiety in Brazilian athletes: study involving cross-cultural adaptation of instrument (SAS-2) and analysis of clinical and sociodemographic variables
• Grantee: Viviane Vedovato Silva Rocha
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master