A scale of coping strategies for everyday stress in sport in the university environment

Assessing strategies for coping with everyday stress in the sporting environment and the relationship of these with other psychoeducational variables, such as empathy, welfare and emotional intelligence, is considered relevant from a psychoeducational and clinical perspective. The aim of this study is to present initial data for adapting and validating a scale aimed at assessing strategies for coping with everyday stress in the context of sport in a sample of university students. Specifically, the scale assesses the following coping strategies: active solution, communicating the problem to others, seeking information and guidance, positive attitude, indifference, aggressive behaviour, keeping the problem to oneself, cognitive avoidance, and behavioural avoidance. Also presented is an analysis of the associations between the use of certain coping strategies (evaluated through the scale presented and other previously-validated tool) and scores for empathy, emotional intelligence and psychological well-being, also evaluated using widely-applied tools that include adequate psychometric properties. The importance of the data obtained for evaluating and designing future programmes for training in effective or productive strategies for coping with daily stress in the sports context is discussed, considering how these important variables relate to improved quality of life and the socioemotional adaptation of university students