The Effect of Irrational Beliefs on the Perceived Stress Level of University Students Engaged in Team Sports

The aim of the study is to investigate the effects of irrational beliefs on perceived stress level in students dealing with team sports. A total of 354 athletes comprising 145 females and 209 males, studying at Gazi and Selcuk University, Faculty of Sport Sciences participated in the study. Students dealing with team sports in various branches were selected by simple random sampling method. The research was designed according to the relational screening model. The analysis of the data was done with the computer-aided SPSS 22 program. Skewness and kurtosis values showed normal distribution. Independent sample t-test was used for paired comparisons, ANOVA test was used for more than two comparisons, and Pearson correlation test was used for correlation analysis. The significance level alpha = 0.05 was used for all tests. From the findings obtained from the research, 59% of the participants were male, 41% were female, and 88.1% were between the ages of 18-23. According to gender; there was no significant difference in the mean scale scores. According to the age variable; the average score of irrational beliefs of the participants aged 18-23 was significantly higher than the mean scores of the athletes older than 23 years (p < 0.05). There was no significant difference in perceived stress scale total score and subscale mean scores. There was a statistically significant, low level and positive relationship between irrational beliefs and perceived stress scale. In conclusion, perceived stress level increased with increase in irrational beliefs (p < 0.01).