The English-speaking, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, and Spanish adaptations of Makarowski’s Stimulating and Instrumental Risk Questionnaire for martial arts athletes

Abstract

Background and Study Aim: The competition is an unique event which supposes pressure, social and financial stake, in these conditions increasing the athletes’ probability of getting injured. And this probability is higher in the case of new and inexperienced athletes, in which case (mainly), the win-at-all-costs philosophy may lead to less calculated risks. The goal of the current study is recommendation to researchers, coaches of various martial arts (combat sports) disciplines, physical education teachers, and psychologists with a measure of stimulating and instrumental risk. Adapting the S&IRQ will allow for assessing athletes in terms of sports risk. Material and Methods: The Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, and English adaptation of Makarowski’s Stimulating and Instrumental Risk Questionnaire (S&IRQ) was made. Two types of risk are discussed: (a) stimulating risk, which focuses on the experience of pleasurable physiological stimulation, and (b) instrumental risk, which is a goal-oriented strategy/tactics. Our study has also a cross-sectional nature, analyzing the results for instrumental and stimulating risk, in the case of eight groups of athletes. The questionnaire’s reliability and validity analyses on martial arts athletes from Hungary (n = 47), Latvia (n = 32), Lithuania (n = 47), English-speaking athletes from other countries (n = 58), Romania, (n = 61), Russia (n = 53), Slovakia (n = 29) and Spain (n = 25) was made. Reliability was measured using the Cronbach’s α internal consistency coefficient, which ranged from 0.69 to 0.83. A confirmatory factor analysis was used to verify the questionnaire’s internal structure. Results: Results of research using the eight versions of the S&IRQ indicate that the measure possesses good psychometric properties and can be used in international research. Also, single-factor analysis of variance revealed significant differences between the groups of athletes. Romanian athletes achieved the highest mean scores for the stimulating risk scale, while athletes from Spain achieved the lowest results. Considering the instrumental risk, Spanish athletes registered the highest score and athletes from Russia the lowest values. Conclusions: The S&IRQ can be used in international studies, as part of psychological training by sport psychologists, coaches, martial arts athletes, athletes from various sport disciplines, for their professional and personal development. The appendix includes Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indian (Martahai and Hindi), Indonesian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Moldavian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak and Spanish versions of the S&IRQ for martial arts athletes, together with the norms for both women and men.