The Impact of Guided imagery on Competitive Anxiety and Perceived Stressof Girls Basketball Players

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of guided imagery oncompetitive anxiety and perceived stress in girls basketball players.

The present study was quasi-experimental with pre-test design, post-test. The statisticalpopulation of the present study included female basketball students of the University of Tehran whowere physically and neurologically healthy and none of them were familiar with guided visual training.Forty people randomly selected and divided into two groups (experimental and control groups). In thisstudy, the experimental group received guided imagery training for four weeks, three sessions perweek and each session for 50 minutes, but the control group did not received psychological training.Subjects were tested by Cohen's Perceived Stress Questionnaire (1983) and Bischart's CompetitiveAnxiety Questionnaire (2009). Data was analyzed by analysis of covariance.

The results showed that perceived stress and competitive anxiety between the experimentaland control groups were significant (P ≥ 0.001), and this method can be used to reduce perceivedstress and competitive anxiety of basketball athletes.

guided imagery exercises had a significant effect on the selected psychological variablesand this method can be used to reduce perceived stress and competitive anxiety of basketballathletes.