Adaptation and evaluation of the Finnish version of the Recovery-Stress Questionnaire for Athletes

An optimal balance between physical stress and recovery is essential to athletic performance. Athletes have to balance physical stress and recovery time to avoid overtraining, fatigue and injury. The optimal balance between athletes’ stress and recovery can be monitored and maintained through different methods, from physiological measures to psychometric instruments (Kellman, 2010). A commonly used psychometric tool is the Recovery–Stress Questionnaire for Athletes (RESTQ-Sport) developed by Kellman and Kallus (2001). The RESTQ-Sport has been applied in a number of studies (Kellman, 2010), and both validity and reliability has been proven high for the original English version (Kellman & Kallus, 2001). However, there is no version in Finnish language. The purpose of the current study aimed to evaluate the factor structure and concurrent validity, of a Finnish version of the RESTQ-Sport. A back-translated Finnish version of the RESTQ-sport was completed by 227 competitive athletes from a wide variety of sport disciplines. The data was evaluated against the model structure proposed by Kellmann and Kallus (2001). To analyze the model fit of the Finnish sample, structural equation modeling was adopted using IBM SPSS AMOS. The factor structure was evaluated using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) for construct validity. For concurrent validity, a shortened version of the Profiles of Mood States (POMS, McNair, Lorr & Droppleman, 1971) was used. The CFA revealed inconsistencies in the structural integrity of the Finnish version of RESTQ-Sport. However, the instrument showed strong concurrent validity in correlation with POMS. Some of the structural inconsistencies have been discovered in previous studies, but not all are explained by preexisting weaknesses in the model. Hence, before utilizing the RESTQ-Sport in stress-recovery monitoring in Finnish, the translation of the instrument should be revisited, and further studies to ensure the construct validity of the model are warranted