Basic psychological needs and exercise addiction in individuals doing fitness exercise

This study was conducted in order to examine basic psychological needs and exercise addiction in individuals doing fitness exercise. The data of the research were delivered to the participants face to face and the participation was based on volunteerism. A total of 376 people were contacted and 17 questionnaires with deficiencies or errors were excluded from the analysis. 359 questionnaire forms were evaluated for analysis. As data collection tools, "Exercise Addiction Scale" developed by Tekkurşun Demir, Hazar and Cicioğlu (2018) and The "Basic Psychological Needs in Exercise Scale" developed by Vlachopoulos and Michailidou (2006) and adapted into Turkish by Vlachopoulos, Aşçı, Ersöz, Cutre, Murcia, and Moutao (2013) was used. The data were evaluated using the SPSS 25.0 package software with a confidence interval of 95% and a significance level of 0.05. Descriptive statistics and frequency distributions of the participants' personal information such as age, gender; How many days a week do you exercise, educational status, marital status, income level, weekly exercise frequency, sports history, occupation, etc. were evaluated. Parametric tests were used in statistical analysis since it was understood that the data showed a normal distribution and the parametric test assumptions were met. As a result of the fact that the data showed normal distribution, independent Sample T Test for paired groups and significance of means in regard to three or more independent groups were tested with One Way Analysis of Variance (One Way ANOVA). Bonferonni Test, which is one of the Post-Hoc Tests, was used due to the homogeneous distribution of variances in the multiple comparisons between the groups carried out in order to determine between which groups the differentiation between the groups is. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to determine whether there is a relationship between two or more variables and, if so, the direction and severity of the relationship. Linear regression analysis was conducted to determine the effect of basic psychological needs in exercise on exercise dependence. It is seen as a result of the research that here is a significant and positive relationship between Exercise Addiction and its sub-dimensions and Basic Psychological Needs in Exercise and its sub-dimensions (p<0.01). It was observed that there was a statistically significant difference (p<0.05) in the variables of exercise addiction and age, marital status, occupation, educational status, sports history, income status and weekly sports frequency of the participants; and that there was a statistically significant difference between the Basic Psychological Needs of the Participants in Exercise and the variables of gender, marital status, educational status, sports history, income status and weekly sports frequency. (p<0.05). Keywords: Exercise, Addiction, Exercise Addiction, Need, Basic Psychological Need