THE RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF SELF-REPORT QUESTIONNAIRES FOR ACUTE FATIGUE MONITORING IN AMATEUR BOXING.

Self-report questionnaires like the profile of mood states (POMS) and recovery stress questionnaire for athletes (RESTQ) are widely utilised to monitor athletes perceived fatigue. Nevertheless, no study has simultaneously investigated the reliability and validity of these questionnaires within the context of acute monitoring. This study therefore examined the reliability and validity of each POMS and RESTQ scale for acutely monitoring athletes' perceived fatigue. The repeated measures parallel group design involved groups of seven novice and seven experienced amateur boxers undertaking familiarization and three experimental trials. All trials involved completing the POMS and RESTQ, with trial two further involving 3 x 2 min rounds of boxing to induce fatigue. Reliability was determined using test-retest coefficient of variation (typical error) between trials one and two. Validity was determined with 2 x 2 (group x trial) repeated measures analysis of variance between novice and experienced groups over trials two and three. For scales demonstrating significant group interaction effect, 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for the mean difference between trials two and three were calculated. Reliability of POMS scales ranged from 2 to 11 arbitrary units (AU), with RESTQ scales ranging from 0.28 to 0.90 AU. No POMS scale detected a difference between boxers immediately prior to and 24 hours (h) post boxing. Only RESTQ injury significantly increased from immediately pre to 24 h post boxing (f = 8.68, p = 0.01), with novices significantly greater than experienced (1.04 ± 0.19 AU, p = 0.05, 95% CI [0.01, 2.07] AU). However, this 95% CI failed to exceed the 0.5 AU typical error, meaning no POMS or RESTQ scale demonstrated adequate reliability and validity for acutely monitoring amateur boxers perceived fatigue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]