Pre-competitive anxiety in handball players at the city of Montes Claros

PRE-COMPETITIVE ANXIETY AND ADOLESCENTS

Abstract

Invasion-based team sports are marked by constant opposition and a high number of athletes on the court. In this sense, the athlete's psychological preparation allows greater attention and clarity in decision-making, in addition to adapting to the difficulties that the game provides. This research project aimed to observe pre-competitive anxiety levels among handball players in the city of Montes Claros. This is an observational, descriptive, analytical, and cross-sectional study. This study assessed pre-competition anxiety in male and female handball players who participated in municipal and state school competitions in the first half of 2023. All procedures presented in this work were approved by the local Research Ethics Committee before being started. The descriptive analysis of the collected data resulted in the presentation of mean and median values, standard deviation and maximum-minimum, as well as confidence intervals. Data normality was also assessed using appropriate statistical tests for each research instrument. To investigate the relationship between the dimensions of precompetitive anxiety, correlation analyzes appropriate to the characteristics of the sample were performed. In general terms, the participating athletes presented intermediate/high levels of cognitive anxiety, low/intermediate levels of somatic anxiety and intermediate levels of self-confidence. This profile was similar between boys and girls in the same age group.