Coping strategies used by Indonesian elite badminton players

The main purpose of this study was to identify strategies used by Indonesian elite badminton players to cope with stressful situations they had experienced as elite athletes. Participants were 16 current Indonesian elite badminton players who had experienced playing in the Olympic Games. Each participant was interviewed using an in-depth, open-ended interview technique that inquired about stressors experienced, ways of coping, and their effectiveness. The interviews were conducted in Indonesian language, tape recorded, transcribed verbatim, and the Indonesian transcripts were translated into English by two bilinguals naive to the purpose of the study. The English transcripts were treated as the main data for analysis. An inductive content analysis technique was used to develop stress source and coping strategy general dimensions. Seven stress sources and 14 coping strategy general dimensions were identified. The seven stressor dimensions, in order from most to least cited by the players, were: precompetition stressors, competition stressors, psychological demands of being an elite shuttler, social relationship problems, illness and injury concerns, failure issues, and personal life concerns. These findings provided further evidence that there is a range of stressor dimensions into which a wide variety of specific stressful situations fit, and that each individual perceived a different pattern of stressors. Results also revealed that the players used a range of strategies to cope with different stressors. Fourteen coping strategy general dimensions were developed from the players' interviews, including: social support and relationships; positive thinking and orientation; training hard, preparing, and playing smart; personal mental strategies; rational thinking and self-talk; leisure activities; determining solutions to problems; personal physical fitness strategies; detachment; reactive behaviours; religious orientation; isolation; inability to cope; and preparing for the future. The results also indicated that one strategy might used for coping with different stressors with different effectiveness, and to cope with one stressor, a player might also use more than one strategy simultaneously. Although stressor and coping strategy dimensions revealed in this study were mostly parallel with previous Western research, several differences across culture were also found. Moreover, gender, specialty of play, and levels of experience, in some degree differentiated the usefulness and the effectiveness of coping strategies used by the Indonesian elite badminton players. The research reported in this thesis also demonstrated that an open-ended interview technique can be used effectively with Indonesian elite badminton players. In identifying a high degree of similarity between the stress experienced and the coping strategies used by Indonesian elite athletes and those from Western backgrounds, along with some noteworthy differences, this thesis is encouraging for further research on stress and coping in elite sport in Asian cultures. It has also provided valuable information for practitioners whose aim is to help athletes cope effectively with the stress of being involved in elite sport