The comparison of stress coping styles between athletes and non-athletes and its relationship with mental health

Stress and anxiety are important factors that can highly affect athletes’ performance. They can also influence the mental and physical heath of the athletes. The aim of this study was to compare the stress-coping styles in two groups of athletes and non-athletes and evaluating its relationship with their mental health. One hundred athletes were selected randomly and 100 non-athletes were voluntarily participated in this study. Both groups answered the standard Yoo coping-styles and Goldberg general health questionnaires. Relevant statistical tests were used for data analysis. Athletes in comparison with non-athletes used problem-focused and emotion-focused coping styles more frequently, but, they used avoidant-coping styles less frequently (P<0.01). Also, in the former group, while the application of problem- and emotion-focused coping-styles were correlated with increase in mental health, avoidant-coping styles were correlated with decrease in mental health. In contrast, in non-athletes, using problem-focused and avoidant coping styles were correlated with increase and decrease in mental health, respectively (P<0.05). Regression analysis demonstrated that stress-coping styles could largely predict the mental health variation in athletes and non-athletes groups (P<0.05). Findings of this study provide more support for the importance of coping styles and its relationship with mental health in stress situations such as sport fields.