Examining the effectiveness of mindfulness based training program on female handball players' psychological skills and coping with stress strategies

The aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of mindfulness-based skill development program on female handball athletes' psychological skills and strategies to cope with the stress in sport. While psychological skills and coping strategies in sport competition constitute the dependent variables of the study, the independent variable is mindfulness based training program. In the study, as a quasi-experimental method, pre-test and post-test model without a control group were used. The study group consists of 9 female handball players who play in Antalya Muratpaşa Municipality Women's Handball Team. The age range of the athletes is between 18-25 and the average age is 20.22. In the research, personal information questionnaire, the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory and Coping Strategies in Sport Competition Inventory were used. The data collection tools were applied in the experiment group as pre-test before the program and as post-test at the end of the program. Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to analyze. In the study, the Mindfulness Based Training Program was implemented for the experimental group once a week as a group training consisting of 8 sessions, each of which lasted for 60 minutes. As a result of Wilcoxon signed rank test, it was found that after the program there was a significant difference in terms of ability to cope with adversity, coach ability, concentration, goal setting and mental preparation, and being free from worries. According to the results, after the program, it has been found that there was a meaningful difference in terms of task oriented coping between the scores of pre-test and post-test of coping strategies in the Sport Competition Inventory.