A study of adaptation and validity, reliability of the RESTQ-sport-36 scale to Turkish for determining the recovery-stress levels of elite and sub-elite Turkish athletes in training and competitions

This study includes the adaptation of the RESTQ-Sport-36 scale into Turkish for application to elite and sub-elite Turkish athletes and the validity and reliability analysis of the scale. In this study, n=894 (age=17.96±4.33) athletes from various branches at elite and sub-elite levels were studied. After the forward and back translations of the scale were approved, content validity analysis was conducted. As a result of the evaluation made by n=10 experts, the content validity index (CVI) of the scale was found to be 0.96 and it was seen that it provided content validity. As a result of Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), four statements (statement numbers 3, 4, 16 and 19) were removed from the scale. The factor distributions of some of the remaining statements changed, and eventually the scale was organized as 32 statements under 7 sub-dimensions. For Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), n=607 data was studied and the first level CFA model was established. It was observed that the model met the goodness of fit criteria at high and medium levels (χ2 (CMIN)=37,73; χ2/sd=3,43; RMSEA=0,063; GFI=0,98; AGFI=0,96; CFI=0,98; NFI=0,98; IFI=0,98; TLI=0,97). It has been observed that the scale provides convergent validity and is more effective in short periods in terms of time invariance. It was observed that the Cronbach's alpha values of the sub-dimensions of the scale varied between .663-.849, and the Cronbach's alpha values of the items varied between .574-.858. When the RESTQ-Sport results were evaluated according to the athletes' gender and educational status, it was seen that female athletes were more stressed than men. Similarly, it was found that the stress scores of athletes at high school and undergraduate levels were higher than those at other education levels. RESTQ-Sport scale can be used as an effective measurement tool in determining and regularly monitoring the recovery and stress balances of Turkish athletes.