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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.

Sec. Sport Psychology

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1637069

This article is part of the Research TopicMental Health in Recreational and Elite SportsView all 29 articles

Survey of workplace stressors among Hungarian elite athletes

Provisionally accepted
Viktória  RespergerViktória Resperger1Anikó  KaprosAnikó Kapros2Tamás  BerkiTamás Berki1*
  • 1Hungarian University of Sports Science, Budapest, Hungary
  • 2Nemzeti Kozszolgalati Egyetem Ludovika, Budapest, Hungary

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

People working in sports, particularly athletes, are vulnerable to workplace stressors. These stressors can arise from various factors and significantly impact an individual's mental, physical, and emotional well-being. This ongoing research maps out the workplace stressors affecting professional Hungarian athletes involved in competitive sports. The study identifies work-related factors that may influence athletes' stress levels. It highlights the parallels between traditional workplace stressors and stressors that affect athletes and shows these stressors across different genders, types of sports, and competition levels. The results also compare the stressors faced by various kinds of sports (such as individual versus team sports). The research was conducted in two stages. A questionnaire prepared as a starting point was designed for a quantitative data collection method using questionnaires. A qualitative preparatory phase was included to refine the questionnaire. The study emphasizes the significance of work-related stress amongst athletes by explicitly examining workplace stressors in sports using an established model. The findings show ten factors and three second-order factors for measuring work-related stress among athletes. The research also identifies differences between how male and female athletes perceive work-related stress. Furthermore, the results indicate that individual athletes experience higher work-related stress levels than team sports. Overall, the research highlights the importance of recognizing and addressing the various stressors athletes face throughout their careers.

Keywords: Workplace stressors, Athletes, Stress factors, Individual sport, team sports

Received: 28 May 2025; Accepted: 05 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Resperger, Kapros and Berki. 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: Tamás Berki, Hungarian University of Sports Science, Budapest, Hungary

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