Objectives: Sports coaching can be an inherently stressful occupation because coaches must fulfill multiple roles and cope with various expectations. Further, stress and well-being have implications for coach performance. The objective of this study was, therefore, to conduct a systematic review of literature on stressors, coping, and well-being among sports coaches. Design: A systematic review using PRIMSA guidelines. Method: Thorough and systematic literature searches of PsycINFO, SPORTDiscus, and Web of Science were conducted. To be eligible for inclusion, papers had to be published in the English language between January 1994 and March 2016 and as full papers in peer-reviewed journals. Results: The final sample consisted of 38 studies that were conducted with 4,188 sports coaches. This sample consisted of 19 qualitative, 17 quantitative, and two mixed methods studies. The findings demonstrate that coaches experience a variety of stressors relating to their performance and that of the athletes they work with in addition to organizational, contextual, interpersonal, and intrapersonal stressors. The findings also highlight that coaches use a variety of coping strategies (e.g., problem solving, social support, escaping the stressful environment) to reduce the negative outcomes of stress. Five studies that were included in this review focused on coaches' well-being and found that basic psychological needs satisfaction, lack of basic psychological needs thwarting, and self-determined motivation are needed for coaches to be psychologically well. Conclusion: Future research should address gaps in extant literature by using longitudinal study designs to explore coaches' appraisals of stressors, coping effectiveness, social support, and well-being among the unique sports coaching population.
Objectives: Research on social support with sports coaches is limited, yet the benefits of social support within other occupations have been widely reported. This study explored sports coaches' social network structures, the social support resources available to coaches, and the situations in which coaches use social support.Design: Cross-sectional.Method: Data were collected with male (n=6) and female (n=7) British coaches (Mage=34.20, SD=13.37; Mexperience=13.20, SD=10.41) using semi-structured interviews and interviewee-aided sociograms. Interview data and sociograms were analyzed using abductive thematic analysis and social network analysis to create ego-network diagrams. The ego-network diagrams were created to provide information on the locality and influence of coaches' social network members. Results:The ego-network diagrams highlight that the structure of coaches' social networks encompasses support from peers, friends, family, and miscellaneous (e.g., media). The diagrams also demonstrate that support from friends tended to be perceived as most influential. The coaches called on their network for appraisal (e.g., affirmation), emotional (e.g., venting), informational (e.g., training), and or instrumental support (e.g., cooking dinner) for a variety of situations, such as training (e.g., drill ideas) and issues with athletes (e.g., venting about a misbehaving player). Conclusion:Given the pertinence of coaches' social networks and resources for performance and psychological well-being, coach education programs should include a focus on the importance of building relationships. Longitudinal research methods are warranted to, for example, explore the dynamic functions of coaches' social support. This will develop a more comprehensive base from which interventions can be developed.
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Research on social support with sports coaches is limited, yet the benefits of social support on performance and well-being within other occupations have been widely reported. This study explored sports coaches’ social support resources over a six-week period to understand how social support resources may alleviate stressors. Longitudinal data were collected from women ( n = 6) and male ( n = 4) sports coaches ( Mage = 35.2, SD = 13.0 years, Mexperience = 13.5, SD = 9.7 years) using three semi-structured interviews over a six-week training and competition period. Interview data were analysed using abductive thematic analysis. Coaches used all four types of social support resources over the six-week period. Informational support for advice, ideas, and feedback on training sessions, new job roles, and player development was used most regularly across the different time points. Coaches also reported that they perceived social support resources may alleviate stressors through stress-buffering and main-effects Social support resources (e.g. esteem) might be more important for buffering the effects of stressors and others (e.g. emotional) may be more important for the main-effects. Given the pertinence of social support resources for performance and psychological well-being, applied interventions should aim to educate coaches on ways to develop a social support network that provides all types of social support resources to help cope more effectively with stressors. Moreover, interventions should aim to alter coaches’ perceptions of potential stressors as less of a threat and more of a challenge to alleviate the prospective negative influences of stressors.
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