Relación del estilo de vida y la ansiedad precompetitiva en deportistas universitarios

Introduction. Sports practice has been associated with mental health benefits. College athletes comply with physical activity levels, but suffer a lot of academic stress and pressure for results in their sport modality. Also, lifestyles are modified in this population and few studies have explored its relationship with precompetitive anxiety in college athletes.

Objective. To determine the relationship between lifestyle and precompetitive anxiety in college athletes.

Materials and methods. An observational, correlational and cross-sectional study was conducted. A total of 127 participants (30.7% men and 69.3% women) aged 20.37 ± 2.57 years were included. The FANTASTICO questionnaire for lifestyles and the CSAI-2R questionnaire for precompetitive anxiety in the domains of somatic anxiety and cognitive anxiety were used. The results were analyzed using descriptive and correlational statistics. Statistical significance was estimated at p<0.05.

Results. Significant differences were found between men and women (higher scores) regarding cognitive and somatic anxiety. An inverse relationship was found between cognitive anxiety (ρ=0.350), somatic anxiety (ρ=-0.430) age (ρ=-0.238) and lifestyle (p<0.01).

Conclusions. The relationships found indicate that university athletes with better lifestyle and older age present less anxious symptomatology. These findings are consistent with studies in the general university population that relate a healthy lifestyle with better mental health. This study provides new information on this population and would be the baseline to develop new research to analyze the most effective lifestyle elements for the management of precompetitive anxiety.