A Pilot Study of a Brief Compassion and ACT Based Sports Program on the Portuguese national female handball team (u18)

Abstract

Introduction: Programs based on contextual-behavioural therapies have been developed for application in the sports context to promote attention to the present moment, and the acceptance of internal states in a non-judgmental and compassionate way during the last two decades. Objective: Analyse the results of a pilot sport-compassion contextual-behavioural program for female young athletes (Portuguese National U18 handball team) by assessing state self-compassion and mindfulness on sport satisfaction, stress competition, coach leadership, and sport psychological skills measures before and after the intervention. Methodology: BCOMP.ACT Program is a new semi-structured integrative intervention based on sport-compassion contextual-behavioural approach. The main four- session intervention taught the basics of mindfulness, compassion, and psychological flexibility. Participants completed validated surveys before and after the intervention. Results: After the intervention, participants reported improvement in mindfulness ability, t(18) = 5.20, p