Effect of Eight Sessions Stress Inoculation Training on Reducing Anxiety before the Competition

The study is to investigate the effect of eight sessions of stress inoculation training on reducing anxiety before the competition in adolescent boys. The research method was semi experimental with pretest-posttest design with experimental and control groups. The statistical population of the study consisted of all adolescents from 19 to 14 years old O Sport’s athletes in the city of Shahrood in 2018. Based on the number of registered in the survey, 63 were present. Athletes were evaluated by Competitive Situation Anxiety (Martens et al., 1995) and 30 subjects with the highest anxiety were randomly divided into experimental and control groups (inoculation). The data were analyzed by independent t-test and dependent t-test. Experimental group was subjected to an independent variable (stress inoculation training) over a period of 8 weeks, during 8 sessions, 1.5 hours, and then tested with competitive anxiety scale-Martens et al. (1995). Validity and reliability of the Persian version of the revised questionnaire was taken by Mehrsfar et al. (2016). The results showed that stress inoculation training effect on reducing anxiety before the competition (P> 0.05). It seems that inoculation training can be effective in reducing anxiety by controlling the physiological arousal of the person in raising performance, especially during the competition.