Physiological and Psychological Well-being During the Spring Season in Female Soccer Players

Abstract

Female student-athletes are an understudied population that are exposed to athletic stressors in addition to academic and social stressors. This study is designed to investigate the physiological and psychological well-being during the spring season in female Division I soccer players. During the 2017 spring season, participants competed in five matches over five weeks and participated in three to four soccer training sessions in between match days. To measure well-being, both objective and subjective measures were used. Activation state was collected via the Activation Deactivation Adjective Checklist (AD-ACL) before all matches. Heart rate and heart rate variability were measured during all matches via Polar Team Pro System (Kempele, Finland). Sources and symptoms of stress, measured via Daily Analysis of Life Demands in Athletes (DALDA), and symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection measured via Wisconsin Upper Respiratory Symptom Survey (WURSS-21) were collected once each week. Monthly measures of sleep quality were collected via the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Results indicated that energy-arousal increased from the first to final match, and was directly related to pass success percentage and number of tackles in midfielders. Freshman found training stressors to be worse than normal more often and experienced more severe cold symptoms than other academic years. Players who incurred a larger amount of match time had a greater degree of trouble motivating themselves to complete tasks outside of soccer. These observations signify the link between physiological well-being and psychological well-being, in addition to the combined impact of these characteristics on athletic and academic performance. Soccer players and staff should be aware of the transfer of fatigue that may occur between athletic and academic endeavors.