Coping inventory for athletes in competition situation: Validity evidence

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the evidence of validity and reliability of the Inventory of Coping for Athletes in a Competition Situation (ICASC-40). This instrument evaluates the coping strategies employed by athletes experiencing stressful situations inherent to sport environments through two broad dimensions: approximation and avoidance. The sample was composed of 243 athletes of different types of sports, aged between 14 and 47 years. (M=21.66±6.65, 55.6% men), enrolled in federative sport institutions. Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed a two-dimensional structure for the ICASC-40, confirming the theoretical hypothesis of the strategies of avoidance and approximation. Confirmatory Factor Analysis showed the adequacy of the ICASC-40 for the evaluation of specific coping strategies, with satisfactory indexes of internal consistency. Furthermore, weak and moderate magnitude correlations were found with adaptive efficacy, indicating adequacy of the instrument to measure the coping construct in athletes.