Adolescent Athletes’ Stress and Coping Strategies: A Study of Dual Pathway Challenges in Academics and Sport

Abstract

This study aims to explore the stressors encountered by adolescent athletes and their coping strategies in response to these stressors. Ten adolescent athletes, aged 13–18, from municipal or provincial teams who had participated in provincial-level competitions and higher, were selected for semi-structured interviews based on a self-drafted interview outline. The transcribed data from audio recordings were coded, thematically searched, reviewed, and labelled using thematic analysis. Identified stressors among adolescent athletes included academic-sport dual pathway stress, training and competition stress, growth-related stress, and peer comparison stress. Coping strategies encompassed pre-competition preparation, training enhancement, self-adjustment, avoidance and diversion, confiding, and going with the flow. The most common coping method reported by adolescent athletes was confiding, which is aligned with an avoidance coping orientation, whereas fostering a positive relationship with the coach was associated with the most positive sports experience.