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Abstract
Sport represents a way in testing our capabilities, it helps improve our physical fitness, and it may be therapeutic as it could help in treatment of anxiety and depression. In spite of this beneficial effect of sport, athletes unfortunately are vulnerable to many psychological and psychiatric problems owing to their life style, which could have a negative influence not only on their career as athletes, but also on their personal life.
Sport psychiatry is the involvement of psychiatry in sport medicine, it deals with many problems such as mental disorders in athletes such as substance abuse, anxiety, eating disorders, also it could help in psychological troubles related to sport such as recovery from injury, retirement, and in helping athletes increase their performance.
The psychiatrist role in sport is to prevent, diagnose and treat mental disorders in athletes, using psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy, group therapy and in addition to that using behaviors that could increase athletic performance.
Sport psychology is the applying of principles of psychology in sport which include how to motivate athletes, how to regulate their thoughts, feeling and emotions.
Sport psychologists were interested in studying the personality traits of athletes, Athletes do differ in their personality traits than non- athletes, also it seams that sport could mould individual personality.
Applied sport psychology deals with how to improve the mental skills of athletes, among which is how to motivate athletes, to improve their concentration and attention control, and enhance their performance. This is done by using a number of strategies and techniques such as imagery, goal setting, relaxation technique and cognitive strategies.
Another important issue in sport is the aggression; aggression among athletes may be as a reaction to frustration, or due to substance abuse, or mental illness. Also aggression could be influenced by the type of sport itself or by coaches or spectators. The international society of sport psychology made some recommendations to decrease aggression in sport.
Injuries are an unfortunate risk for athletes, many researches found that psychological factors play a significant role in the onset, rehabilitation and return to sport following injury recovery. Several psychosocial factors seems to be related to occurrence of injury among these are; personality traits, life stressor and low coping skills. The psychological consequences of injury might be depressive symptoms, anger and frustration. So the psychological intervention helps to reduce the incidence of injury and help in rehabilitation and return to play.
Retirement in sport is a major stressor in athletic life, adjustment to retirement on athletes depends on the coping skills of the athletes and on the cause of retirement whether voluntary or involuntary, bad coping may lead to many psychiatric problems such as substance abuse, eating disorders and depression.
Overtraining syndrome or may be referred as burnout represent one of the most feared complication in sport, it could be diagnosed when an athlete suffer from underperformance, prolonged recovery, excessive fatigue and depressive symptoms.
The most common psychiatric problems in sport are anxiety, eating disorders, and drug use.
Another important issue in sport is the anxiety among athletes which may be referred as competitive anxiety, which is the anxiety generated in sport competitive situations. Arousal is closely related to anxiety; it could affect performance either positively or negatively. There are many theories that explain arousal-performance relation among which are the drive theory and inverted U hypothesis.
There are multiple techniques used to decrease anxiety in sport among which is the cognitive strategies, imagery and relaxation techniques. The most common stress management programs are the stress inoculation training, cognitive affective stress managing training and cognitive-behavioral stress management intervention.
Athletes are expected to have an increase in developing eating disorders, this is in part because they are under pressure from their sport to reach ideal body weight and in another because the personality traits of elite athletes is similar to those of individuals with eating disorders such as perfectionism, competitiveness, and that they are intensively concerned with performance.
Athletes may suffer from anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa or binge eating disorders. The female athletes’ triad is characterized by disordered eating, amenorrhea and osteoporosis.
Researches had found that eating disorders are common among athletes than non athletes, female athletes than male athletes and in sport in which leanness or specific body weight are considered to be important.
Treatment of eating disorders in athletes must include treatment of malnourishment and medical condition, psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy and treatment of concomitant psychiatric illnesses such as depression or anxiety.
Drug use is another important issue in sport; athletes may use drugs to increase their performance or to decrease their anxiety. The most common drugs used by athletes are anabolic androgenic steroids, alcohol, amphetamines and spit tobacco.
Anabolic steroids is used by athletes to enhance their performance, it may lead to many complications which may be psychiatric or medical disorders.
Alcohol is so commonly used by athletes; they use it in order to increase performance and relieve stress and to decrease depressive symptoms. Alcohol has a bad effect on health and performance and it may increase the risk for injuries.
Stimulants such as amphetamines or ephedrine are used by athletes to provide them with energy and fighting fatigue. Stimulants may lead to anxiety, insomnia irritability and weight loss.
Spit tobacco is used commonly by male athletes; they use it for relaxation, to improve concentration, to increase energy and to relieve boredom. Spit tobacco may lead to oral cancer, caries, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, anxiety and insomnia.
Psychiatric intervention here is important, it may help in diagnosis and treatment for drug use among athletes, and treatment of associated mental illnesses.