Factors affecting stress tolerance skills of athletes during a psychomotor task

Objective: To investigate the psychophysiological effects of stress on athletes and to reveal the psychological characteristics necessary to overcome these effects. Materials and Methods: Forty female and twenty five male subjects in the MCBU School of Sports Sciences were randomly assigned to one of the experimental and control groups. Data Collection Form with Self-Talk Questionnaire (Zervas et al. 2007), Positive and Negative Emotional Scale (Watson et al. 1988), Five Factor Personality Inventory Short Form (Tatar 2016), Coping with Stress Questionnaire (Özbay 1993), Visual Analogue Scale (Aitken 1969) and NASA-TLX Workload Inventory have been applied to participants. Heart rate variability and galvanic skin responses of participants were measured by NeXus-10 device for three minutes during four conditions, namely as rest, stressor, task, and recovery. Statistical results were obtained by data analysis with SPSS 20,0 package program. Findings: There was a significant relationship between the attitudes of coping with stress at rest and the GSR, and HRV values, and Active Planning, External Assistance, and Dodge-Abstraction (Biochemical subscale). In HRV frequency dimension, there is a significant relationship with Active Planning and Receiving External Assistance. When the relation between the Five Factor Personality Theory and the GSR and HRV time dimension at the time of rest were taken into consideration while considering the whole sample, there was a significant relationship between Outwardness and Emotional Balance subscales and HRV time dimension values; Compliance and GSR value (r = ,33, p = ,039). Conclusions: It was found that the physiological parameters change during experimental conditions and the amount of change is related to psychological properties.