COPING STRATEGIES IN HIGH COMPETITION BASKETBALL PLAYERS

RESUMO

Ant�³nio Rosado, Ana Marques dos Santos y F�©lix Guill�©n

This study has the purpose of identifying the coping strategies used by a professional basketball team in stressful situations typical of high competition train ing. In order to identify the coping strategies used by participants, semi-structured interviews were administered. For the design of the interview, several instruments used to evaluate coping strategies were considered. A content analysis was carried out to examine the data obtained from the interviews (n = 11), using the logical semantic approach. Stress sources are related to general and specific aspects of competition and training, to the cost and the demands of basketball and to aspects related to the development of the athlete’s career. The coping strategies used in the identified situations belong to three coping categories: problem-centred coping, emotion-centred coping, and other coping strategies. Results indicate that the most frequently used coping strategies to face stressful situations were active coping (problem-centred coping), with special emphasis on communication, mental distance and effort increase strategies and coping strategies focused on emotion, specifically positive reevaluation and growth.