Relationship between perceived stress and psychological resilience: The mediating roles of coping styles, mindfulness, perceived social support in student athletes

This study aimed to test the hypothetical model of the mediation roles of coping strategies, mindfulness, and perceived social support on the relationship between psychological resilience and perceived stress of student-athletes. Further, this study compared the model with a specific focus on gender and sports type (individual sports and team sports) differences. Moreover, interview sessions were conducted for collecting qualitative data to gain a deeper understanding about this model. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used within the framework of explanatory mixed research design. In the quantitative data collection phase, the data were obtained from 604 student-athletes. In the qualitative data collection phase, a semi-structured interview was conducted with ten student-athletes. The quantitative data were analyzed through Multigroup Structural Equation Models whereas the qualitative data were analyzed through Phenomenological analysis. The findings of the study showed that, the hypothetical model was partially verified and problem-focused coping, mindfulness, and perceived social support mediated the the impact of the participants'perceived stress on psychological resilience. Besides, the resilience model did not differ in terms of gender and sport type. The analysis of the quantitative data unveiled four main themes: stress factors, protective internal factors, protective external factors, and positive results, and it was observed that the findings obtained from these themes confirm the hypothetical model. It was found out that social support, problem-focused coping, and mindfulness affected the relationship between the student athletes' stress and psychological resilience. Overall, these findings suggest that, supporting student athletes with psychological factors such as problem-focused coping with stress, mindfulness, and social support is very important for their optimum performance and efficiency.