Psychological Stress and Its Relationship with Defense Mechanisms Among Second-Year Students at the College of Physical Education and Sport Sciences - University of Diyala

Abstract

   Psychological pressures have become an integral part of our daily lives, as stress is considered one of the factors that contribute to mental and physical fatigue and exhaustion in individuals. There are both internal and external sources of psychological stress, which include (family problems – the great responsibility a person bears – financial issues, etc.). As for psychological defense mechanisms, they are among the strategies that an individual uses to protect themselves from stress, anxiety, tension, and psychological conflicts they experience, which affect them and their daily behavior and interactions with others. Psychologists consider them unconscious distortions of reality aimed at reducing feelings of conflict and anxiety. The importance of the research lies in finding the relationship between psychological stress and coping with it using psychological defense mechanisms among second-year students at the College of Physical Education and Sports Sciences. The research problem is based on the researchers' experience as members at the College of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, where they observed a high level of psychological stress among second-year students due to the large number of courses and the pressures of both theoretical and practical exams. The research aims to identify the relationship between psychological stress and the use of psychological defense mechanisms among second-year students. The objective of the research is to understand psychological stress and its relationship with psychological defense mechanisms among second-year students at the College of Physical Education and Sports Sciences.,The researchers used the descriptive method with the correlational survey approach due to its suitability for the research problem. It included the research methodology and its field procedures. The research sample included (100) students, second-year students at the College of Physical Education and Sports Sciences at the University of Diyala. Some students were excluded due to not adhering to official attendance, totaling (10) students, The remaining students, totaling (14), and were selected for the exploratory experiment. After reviewing many scales related to psychological stress and defense mechanisms, the researchers relied on the Psychological Stress Scale by (Hiba, Abdulsalam, and Taha, 2023) and the Defense Mechanisms Scale by (Fathi Farouk Mohamed, 2024).