Comparison the Styles of Coping with Stress in Athletes of the Iran National Individual Sports

The purpose of this study was to compare the styles of coping with stress among elite athletes in Iran national individual sports and also women and men athletes in different age groups. All 340 athletes in 23 sport fields in Iran National team’s camp were selected that 276 persons (81 percent statistical populations) completed the questionnaire and returned to the researcher. The instrument of the study was a standard questionnaire (coperevised) which is used for measuring the coping styles with stress in elite athletes. This questionnaire included 40 questions in Likert`s 4 value measurement (never=1 to always=4), and statistical tests of Friedman, Wilcoxon,Mann- Whitney U and Kruscal Wallis were used in significant level of p≤0.05 to analyzing the data. The results indicated that athletes used accommodation cope, approach, self-punishment, self-help and avoidance styles, respectively. Although, the athletes older than 30 years used the approach and self-punishment coping styles more than other styles, there was no significant difference between athletes according to their experience. Generally, the problem-focused style was more prevalent than emotion-focus style among all athletes Also, the men athletes used emotion-focused style more than women athletes.