Adolescent soccer athletes’ irrational beliefs about basic psychological needs are related to their emotional intelligence and mental health

There has been a scarcity of research regarding the unique mental health risk factors that adolescent athletes face. The recently proposed Rational Emotive Self Determination Scale for Adolescents (RESD-A) has been suggested to understand some of the antecedent and associative factors of adolescent athlete mental health. The principal aim of this study is to examine the structural and criterion validity of the RESD-A in an athlete sample for the first time. To achieve this aim, two hundred and forty-two club level soccer athletes participated in the study. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to test the validity of the RESD-A’s factor structure. Partial correlation analyses with the subscales of RESD-A, emotional intelligence, and mental health scores were used to examine criterion validity. Initial results for the structural and criterion validity of the RESD-A with an athlete population are promising. The potential importance, limitations and directions for future research are discussed.