Original articles   

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2000 March;40(1):63-70

Copyright © 2002 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

The relationship of hardiness, sense of coherence, sports participation, and gender to preceived stress and psychological symptoms among college students

Skirka N.

From the Montclair State University Montclair, New Jersey, USA

Background. This ­study address­es the ­issue of why ­under con­di­tions of ­stress ­some peo­ple ­stay phys­i­cal­ly and psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly ­healthy ­while oth­ers ­become ill. Being ­able to ­deal ­with ­stress, to ­cope ­with the pres­sures of dai­ly ­life, and yet ­stay ­healthy, is ­seen as a func­tion of ­such fac­tors as phys­i­cal ­health, psy­cho­log­i­cal ­health, con­sti­tu­tion­al pre­dis­po­si­tion, ­social sup­port, exer­cise hab­its, and per­son­al­ity.
Methods. This ­study exam­ined the mod­er­at­ing ­effects of the per­son­al­ity con­structs of har­di­ness and ­sense of coher­ence, ­sports par­tic­i­pa­tion (col­lege var­sity ath­letes and col­lege non­ath­letes), and gen­der on the rela­tion­ship ­between per­ceived ­stress and psy­cho­log­i­cal symp­toms. College var­sity ath­letes (n=135) and col­lege non­ath­letes (n=135), all under­grad­u­ates at New York University, com­plet­ed ­four ques­tion­naires: Hardiness Scale, Sense of Coherence Scale, Daily Hassles Scale, and Profile of Mood States. Participants ­also com­plet­ed a back­ground ques­tion­naire pro­vid­ing ­basic dem­o­graph­ic ­data. Psychological symp­toms and per­ceived ­stress ­were the cri­ter­ion var­i­ables: har­di­ness, ­sense of coher­ence, ­sports par­tic­i­pa­tion, and gen­der ­were the pre­dic­tor var­i­ables. Correlational anal­y­ses ­were ­applied to the result­ing ­data and ­used to ­answer and to ­test the ­research hypoth­e­ses.
Results. There was a sig­nif­i­cant pos­i­tive cor­re­la­tion ­between per­ceived ­stress and psy­cho­log­i­cal symp­toms ­among col­lege var­sity ath­letes and col­lege non­ath­letes. There was a sig­nif­i­cant pos­i­tive cor­re­la­tion ­between the per­son­al­ity ­scales of Hardiness and Sense of Coherence for ­both col­lege var­sity ath­letes and col­lege non­ath­letes. When con­trol­ling for gen­der, col­lege var­sity ath­letes ­scored sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er on har­di­ness, ­scored slight­ly high­er on ­sense of coher­ence, and report­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly ­less per­ceived ­stress and sig­nif­i­cant­ly few­er psy­cho­log­i­cal symp­toms ­than the col­lege non­ath­letes. Comparing by gen­der, no sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant ­mean dif­fer­enc­es ­were ­found on the ­four ­main var­i­ables. A sig­nif­i­cant neg­a­tive cor­re­la­tion was ­observed ­between per­son­al­ity har­di­ness and per­ceived ­stress and psy­cho­log­i­cal symp­toms for the ­total sam­ple. However, the col­lege non­ath­letes sub­sam­ple ­showed no sig­nif­i­cant ­effect ­between har­di­ness and per­ceived ­stress.
Conclusions. Finally, ­there was a sig­nif­i­cant neg­a­tive cor­re­la­tion ­between ­sense of coher­ence and per­ceived ­stress and psy­cho­log­i­cal symp­toms for ­both the col­lege var­sity ath­letes and col­lege non­ath­letes.