Análise da saúde mental e estratégias de coping em técnicos de esportes de combate

Abstract

The current study aimed to analyze the mental health and coping strategies in of 102 combat sports (CE) coaches. The objective of the study is to identify possible levels of mental disorders, frequency and forms of manifestation of problems associated to this topic in the chosen sample; examine a possible relationship between the mental health of EC coaches and their coping mechanisms; and verify the possibility of the existence of connections between the age and experience of EC coaches with their mental health indicators and coping strategies. For the analysis the quantitative psychometric questionnaires were chosen: GAD-7 to assess anxiety; PHQ-9, to assess depression and CFQ to assess coping strategies. The instruments were applied along a socio-demographic questionnaire, in which information such as age, marital status, time of experience as a coach and competitive level of the athletes they train were collected. The information obtained was organized and included in a tabulation and then analyzed using Spearman's correlation coefficient test, Kruskal-Wallis test, Fisher's exact test and simple linear regression. The analyzed results reveal that EC coaches have significant values of low mental health, which confirms the first hypothesis of the study (H1). It was not possible to establish a correlation between a specific coping function and mental health, which rejects the second research hypothesis (H2). The study also analyzed the relationship between experience and age, which when combined revealed the groups of EC coaches with the lowest rates of mental disorders, which confirms the third hypothesis of the study (H3); and more experienced and older coaches predominantly adopted the Emotion coping function, which confirms the fourth hypothesis of the study (H4). Thus, the data from the present study reinforces the need for further investigation with regard to the mental health of EC coaches and for more studies that seek to elucidate a possible connection between age and experience with the maintenance of good mental health and the ability to deal with the stressors.