• Users Online: 594
  • Home
  • Print this page
  • Email this page
Home Current issue Archives Ahead of print Search Subscribe Instructions Submit article About us Editorial board Contacts Login 
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Year : 2013  |  Volume : 34  |  Issue : 2  |  Page : 85-92

A survey on the significance of psychological and psychiatric assessment among qualified African football referees


Psychiatry Department, Faculty of Medicine, Banha University, Banha, Egypt

Correspondence Address:
Shewikar T El Bakry
MD, Psychiatry Department, Faculty of Medicine, Banha University, Banha
Egypt
Login to access the Email id

Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None


DOI: 10.7123/01.EJP.0000418693.73007.54

Rights and Permissions

Purpose

The present study was carried out to investigate why psychiatric and psychological examinations are neglected during periodical medical examinations for football referees.

Patients and methods

A total of 42 certified male referees were randomly selected from the Sports Medicine Specialized Center situated at Nasr City, Cairo Governorate, Egypt. All participants were registered at the African Confederation of Football. Male adult referees with ages ranging from 29 to 43 years were included in the study. Questionnaires related to the demographic personal characteristics, anxiety, physical health, stress, burnout, and depression were filled out by the participants.

Results

The mean age of the participants was 40±3.35 years. Of the participants, 34 were unmarried and eight were married; 32 participants did not have children and 10 did. A total of 36 participants had recieved higher education and six recieved only high school education. Participants were under moderate training schedules of 5 sessions/week of 1½–2 h each and had moderate years of experience (30–50 matches/year). With regard to the Burnout Anxiety Inventory, 63.3% of the participating referees showed no signs of anxiety, 18.4% were at borderline, 15.9% showed mild signs, and 1% presented with moderate records. With regard to the mind over mood depression scores, 35 participants showed no signs, whereas only two showed low signs. The Beck Depression Inventory scores of all participants was in the range of 0–7, that is, they had normal levels of depression. The physical wellness scores of 31 participants were recorded as excellent, whereas five recorded only average scores. With respect to the life stress scores, 67% of participants had normal life stress scores compared with 33% who were more prone to suffer or experience illnesses or accidents from life stress incidents. The Burnout Inventory scale revealed that 47.05% of participants had little signs and 52.95% showed low signs of burnout, with none being at risk. The Maslach results were also in concordance, according to which only one referee suffered from a burnout.

Conclusion

Thus, it may be deduced that, although the present levels of burnout may not be high, there is always potential for it to increase. Thus, programs on burnout are suggested to be included in training courses for referees to prevent the start of symptoms. It is therefore recommended that physical checkup be supplemented with psychiatric and psychological examinations in the periodical assessments of physical health for football referees.



[FULL TEXT] [PDF]*
Print this article     Email this article
 Next article
 Previous article
 Table of Contents

 Similar in PUBMED
   Search Pubmed for
   Search in Google Scholar for
 Related articles
 Citation Manager
 Access Statistics
 Reader Comments
 Email Alert *
 Add to My List *
 * Requires registration (Free)
 

 Article Access Statistics
    Viewed2067    
    Printed223    
    Emailed0    
    PDF Downloaded228    
    Comments [Add]    
    Cited by others 4    

Recommend this journal