Examination of amateur footbal players' self-efficacy beliefs and sport injury anxiety levels

Objective: This study aims to examine the self-efficacy beliefs and sport injury anxiety levels of amateur football players, whether they differ according to demographic (age, gender, marital status ...) variables and whether sport injury anxiety levels predict self-efficacy beliefs. Material and Method: Relational screening method has been used in the study. The study group of the research consists of a total of 342 amateur football players, 268 males and 74 females, who are licensed in various teams and clubs in Erzincan province. "Personal Information Form", "Sport Injury Anxiety Scale (SIA)" and "Athlete Self-Efficacy Scale (ASES)" are used in the study. Descriptive statistics, correlation, regression, Chi-square Independence Test, Independent Groups t-Test, One Way Anova, Welch, Mohalonobis Cook, Post Hoc, Tamhane and Tukey tests are used to analyse the data. The results are evaluated at 0.05 level. Findings: It is observed that there is a significant relationship between the sports injury anxiety level and athlete self-efficacy beliefs of amateur footballers and some demographic variables (gender, marital status, serious injury status, employment status other than football, warm-up and cooling habit status, time spent in injury, anatomical region where the injury is experienced, active football playing status). In addition, it is found that there is a significant negative relationship between sport injury anxiety and athlete self-efficacy level, that sport injury anxiety is a significant predictor of athlete self-efficacy and explains 14% of the total variance. Conclusion: As the injury anxiety levels of amateur football players increase, the level of athlete self-efficacy decreases.