Psychological profile of greek athletes with visual impairments

Introduction

Psychological skills training for enhancing performance is typically practiced by able body athletes. Nevertheless, sports psychologists have recently pointed out the importance of psychological skills training by athletes with impairments [1,2]. The purpose of the present study was to examine the psychological profile of Greek athletes with visual impairments in a variety of sports.

Methods

Participants were12 athletes with visual impairments, ten men and two women (Mage= 25.92 ± 6.26) who voluntary completed the Test of Performance Strategies [3]. The questionnaire consists of eight subscales and was well suited to measure athletes’ use of psychological skills and strategies both in training and in competition.

Results

The results indicate a high score on all subscales self talk (M=4.1 ±0.7), emotional control (M=3.6 ±0.82), imagery (M=3.5 ±0.9), goal setting (M=4.2 ±0.6), activation (M=4.3 ±0.6), negative thinking (M=4.2 ±0.6) except automaticity (M=2.5 ±1.2) and relaxation (M=2.9 ± 0.7).
A non-parametric analysis of variance showed that there were no differences in psychological skills related to: a) disability (acquired-congenital), b) classification and c) sport

Discussion / Conclusions

Overall, the results of the study showed that the Greek athletes with visual impairments indicate a high level of performance strategies almost in all subscales, in training and in competition.

References

[1]. Asken, M. J. (1991). The Sport Psychologist, 5, 370-381.
[2]. Hanrahan, S.J. (1998). The Sport Psychologist, 12, 346-357.
[3]. Thomas, P.R., Murphy, S.,M., & Hardy, L. (1999). Journal of Sports Sciences, 17, 697-711.