Psychological Characteristics in athletes with physical disability

Abstract

Psychological training is important for athletes at any performance level, even in athletes with disability. However, the research of applied psychology in adapted sport is limited. With the double aim of identifying the Psychological Characteristics (PC) in the athletes with a physical disability, and to compare the behavior of the PC regarding the sports experience, age, sex, and sport type (team vs individual), a No-Experimental and cross-sectional study was designed. 87 athletes with physical disability participated, belonging to the Antioquia’s League (Colombia) of eleven sport disciplines: chess, athletics, archery, basketball, weightlifting, swimming, rugby, sport shooting, table tennis, tennis, and volleyball. The age range oscillated between 18 and 71 year-old (M_age= 34.9, SD=10.8), women n=71 (M_age= 35.2, SD=11.2), and woman n= 16 (M_age= 33.3, SD=9.2). The questionnaire for Psychological Characteristics related to Sport Performance (CPRD, for this Spanish acronym) was completed. The findings indicated that the PC did not show differences towards sports experience, age, and sex. The Team Cohesion showed differences by sex (p= .092, d=.43), and between sport type, team vs individual (p<.001, d=.83). It is concluded that the PC presented a homogeneous behavior with respect to sports experience, age, and sex. There are differences in the Team Cohesion factor favorable for team athletes. Researches in the future could analyze the PC of the adapted sport in contrast to conventional sport. The adapted sport requires more research that can contribute to knowledge to the professionals of sport science.