Stressful Situations in Competitive Basketball

Abstract

Self‐reported stress was investigated in 84 male basketball players (mean age: 23 years) regularly engaged in organised, competitive grade basketball. The subjects were administered the Stressful Situations in Basketball Questionnaire (SSBQ), designed to measure perceived stress in competitive situations. The most stressful situations were found to be “a slump in personal form” and “the team is losing and the opposition is holding up play”. The most commonly experienced category of stressor, according to the frequency of responses on the SSBQ, was Errors in General Play (Scale 3). Other highly endorsed scales were Being Outplayed (Scale 1), Other Performance (Scale 6), and Game Tension (Scale 4). Analyses by independent t tests indicated that while there were no differences according to experience, players who said that they trained more reported negative team performance situations as more stressful than those who trained less. This finding appears to reflect a greater investment in the team's performance by players who reported that they trained for a longer period than their teammates. Future studies are required to determine whether similar categories of stress pertain to other sports.