Ignite Creation Date:
2024-05-06 @ 12:45 PM
Last Modification Date:
2024-10-26 @ 1:04 PM
Study NCT ID:
NCT03849170
Status:
UNKNOWN
Last Update Posted:
2019-03-07
First Post:
2019-02-14
Brief Title:
Reducing Competitive Anxiety Cheerleader Psychology
Sponsor:
Western University Canada
Organization:
Western University Canada
Study Overview
Official Title:
Reducing Competitive Anxiety in Cheerleaders A Psychological Approach
Status:
UNKNOWN
Status Verified Date:
2019-01
Last Known Status:
NOT_YET_RECRUITING
Delayed Posting:
No
If Stopped, Why?:
Not Stopped
Has Expanded Access:
False
If Expanded Access, NCT#:
N/A
Has Expanded Access, NCT# Status:
N/A
Acronym:
None
Brief Summary:
Cheer leading is a rapidly growing international sport known for its acrobatic skills and dangerous stunts The sport presents ample risk for physical trauma and it is common for athletes to miss extensive time from cheer leading due to injury The goal of this study is to the see whether the investigators can reduce injury risk among cheer leading athletes by teaching them stress-coping skills to help them relax and reduce their sport-related stress There exists a link between high levels of stress and increased rates of injury among athletes When individuals become stressed during athletic events such as competitions or strenuous training symptoms including muscle tension and narrowed attention often accompany the stress response increasing injury risk and reducing performance quality In this study half of Western Universitys coed cheer leading team will participate in a six-session stress management intervention to teach them relevant psychological stress-coping skills Such skills include relaxation breathing techniques visualization exercises stoppage of negative thoughts and development of self-efficacy statements The other half of the team will receive a placebo sport nutrition program The sessions of both the control program and the stress-management intervention will be administered over the most intensive period of the cheer leading season from September to November of 2019 The investigators predict that the intervention group athletes will report less cheer leading time missed due to injury report less sport-related stress and make fewer errors at their cheer leading championship than their teammates in the placebo group This is the first study to administer a psychological injury-prevention intervention to cheerleaders
Detailed Description:
Background Information Cheer leading is a growing highly competitive and potentially stressful sport with 35 million athletes practicing worldwide The sport presents many risks as it was responsible for more catastrophic injuries among female high school and college athletes than any other sport between 1982 and 2016 in the US In Canada there were 1496 cheer leading injuries requiring hospitalization from 1990 to 2010 According to the Williams and Andersen stress model athletes with certain personality dispositions eg high competitive anxiety fewer coping resources eg social support stress management and an extensive history of life stressors are prone to appraising athletic situations as being stressful resulting in an exaggerated stress response The stress response is particularly likely to manifest itself during instances in which an athlete perceives a high demand to succeed but feels they possess inadequate resources to do so These situations often lead to a variety of symptoms including poorer performance quality generalized muscle tension physiological and heightened distractibility attentional culminating in a greater likelihood of injury among athletes Objectives The goal of this study will be to administer a psychological-based intervention to improve the stress-coping skills of competitive cheerleaders acting to minimize their competitive anxiety maintain their performance quality and reduce their risk of injury during the span of a season Hypothesis Cheerleaders who complete a psychological-based stress-coping intervention will report lower competitive anxiety demonstrate superior performance and report less time lost from cheer leading due to injury compared to a control group of teammates receiving a placebo program Theoretical Approach The psychological intervention will be based on the Stress Inoculation Technique SIT with the objective of restructuring athletes coping skills in order to improve their management of stress ie competitive anxiety During the first phase of SIT athletes will bring up narrative accounts of stressful athletic situations identifying previously insufficient coping techniques as well as potential coping strengths Self-monitoring strategies will be introduced to help athletes become more aware of the ways that they inadvertently build up stress reactions During the second SIT phase athletes will be taught coping skills such as muscle relaxation use of self-efficacy confidence statements cognitive re-framing of stressful situations and emotion regulation techniques which they will then apply to their personal cheer leading experiences These skills will be further rehearsed through positive mental imagery and practice to ensure their effectiveness In the final SIT stage athletes will be encouraged to apply their new coping skills to incrementally more demanding cheer leading situations while utilizing stress management techniques Athletes will be further reminded to take credit for their improvement instilling a lasting sense of self-efficacy The SIT intervention will teach athletes an array of anxiety management skills in order to help them develop effective stress-coping strategies during important cheer leading events Participants will maintain an in-person correspondence with the researcher throughout to ensure a properly personalized and collaborative intervention experience Methods The intervention period will reach from September 2019 to December 2019 as this is the busiest and most competitive part of the cheer leading season Half of Western Universitys 30-40 athlete co-ed cheer leading team will be randomized to complete a six session sport nutrition program as a control while the other half will be randomized to complete a six session bi-weekly SIT program Since the intervention and control groups will come from the same team all participants will share identical practice and competition schedules ensuring each group is exposed to the same athletic situations As such differences in group outcomes will most likely be due to the type of intervention they received To measure performance quality total scoring deductions caused by the athletes in each group during Westerns two runs at the 2019 PCA college cheer leading championship will be compared Fewer deductions indicate fewer errors bobbles drops falls etc and reflect superior performance Impact The current study will be the first to develop and implement a psychological-based intervention tailored to cheerleaders with the goal of improving these athletes stress-coping abilities If successful this intervention is highly scalable and can be used by athletes where stress and injury are salient features of their sport and where individual performance is highly scrutinized
Study Oversight
Has Oversight DMC:
None
Is a FDA Regulated Drug?:
False
Is a FDA Regulated Device?:
False
Is an Unapproved Device?:
None
Is a PPSD?:
None
Is a US Export?:
None
Is an FDA AA801 Violation?:
None