ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Sport Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1605765
This article is part of the Research TopicCombat Sports and Wellbeing: Advancing Health and Inclusion in Athletes and PractitionersView all 10 articles
Psychological resilience in Olympic combat sports
Provisionally accepted
Radu Predoiu1
Maurizio Bertollo2*
Andrzej Piotrowski3
Rareș Stănescu1Faten Hamdi4
Gabriela Szabo5
Germina Cosma6- 1National University of Physical Education and Sport, Bucharest, Romania
- 2School of Medicine and Health Sciences, G. D'Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy
- 3Institute of Psychology, University of Gdańsk, Gdańsk, Pomeranian, Poland
- 4High Institute of Sports and Physical Education, University of Jendouba, Kef, Tunisia
- 5"George Emil Palade" University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science and Technology, Advanced Medical and Pharmaceutical Research Center, Târgu Mureș, Romania
- 6University of Craiova, Craiova, Romania
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The purpose of the study was to examine psychological resilience in Olympic combat sports, comparing gender, sports performance level and discipline type. Moreover, we verified whether resilience predicts sports performance. Materials and methods: Eighty-four athletes were involved in the study. Psychological resilience was assessed with the Romanian adaptation of the Brief Resilience Scale. Results: Using the Goodman and Kruskal tau association test a significant link was found between athletes' gender and the scoring on psychological resilience. Also, analysis of variance and Tukey post-hoc test highlighted significant differences between athletes' level (i.e. international, national, and regional/local athletes) (p = 0.02, respectively p < 0.01). Data analysis showed no significant differences in resilience (p = 0.182) between the Olympic combat sports (disciplines) investigated (boxing, karate, fencing and taekwondo). In addition, a binomial logistic regression was performed, predicting athletes' likelihood to obtain higher sports performances based on psychological resilience. Conclusion: A slightly above average level of psychological resilience (generally) is linked with an increased likelihood of international and/or national performances in Olympic combat sports. On the other hand, athletes with lower caliber obtained the highest scores for resilience. In addition, male athletes obtained higher scores for resilience than female athletes. The study offers a valuable window into understanding psychological resilience in combat sports.
Keywords: psychological resilience, combat sports, Sports performance, Martial Arts, caliber
Received: 03 Apr 2025; Accepted: 26 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Predoiu, Bertollo, Piotrowski, Stănescu, Hamdi, Szabo and Cosma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Maurizio Bertollo, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, G. D'Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy
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