scholarly journals Influence of Playing Venue on Testosterone and Cortisol Responses in Male Inter-University Volleyball Players

2020 ◽  
Vol V (IV) ◽  
pp. 93-101
Author(s):  
Yasmeen Tabassum ◽  
Muhammad Zafar Iqbal Butt ◽  
Nabila Roohi

The present study aimed to examine the effect of playing venue on testosterone and cortisol responses in male volleyball players. Ninety-six players from eight different public and private universities were monitored during eight competitive matches playing against each other on a home and opponent's home ground. The matches played at home were also won. Testosterone (ng/mL) and cortisol (ug/dL) levels were analyzed before and after each match. A significantly (p 0.0001) pre-match reduction was seen in the testosterone level of players on the opponent's home ground as evidence which indicates that playing venue affects the players' behavior even they did not play the match. Whereas, significantly (p 0.0001) higher pre-match cortisol level of players was observed on an opponent's home ground before the commencement of the match. The present study concluded that playing venue strongly influenced the players' hormonal responses, and they perceive more stress while playing on the opponent's ground.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasmeen Tabassum ◽  
Muhammad Zafar Iqbal Butt ◽  
Nabila Roohi ◽  
Muhammad Abdul Jabar Adnan ◽  
Sitaram Khadka ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Playing venue conditions is a prominent contributor to the performance of players in a competition. Hence, the present study was designed to evaluate the effect of playing venue on the hormonal responses, psychological state, and perception of effort in inter-university basketball players. Methods: A total of 96 male basketball players from eight different public and private sector universities were monitored during eight competitive matches played against each other on a home and away ground. Testosterone and cortisol levels were measured before and after each match. The psychological state test was conducted before each match and the perception of effort score was taken after the match. Results: Elevated testosterone levels, before playing a match, as evidenced at home ground, however, a 4% decline was recorded in testosterone level at away venue, even before playing the match. Both testosterone and cortisol levels depicted the same trend on home as well as away ground. Pre-match testosterone concentration and the percent changes in these hormones were related to self-confidence, especially when playing at home, and cortisol pre and post concentration related to cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, and perception of effort.Conclusions: The playing influenced hormonal responses before the commencement of basketball matches at away ground. These hormonal responses were related to players' psychological state, which might contribute to players’ behavior and outcomes of matches.


Author(s):  
Yasmeen Tabassum ◽  
Muhammad Zafar Iqbal Butt ◽  
Nabila Roohi

The home advantage is a powerful wonder that happens in the realm of amateur and professional games where most teams win more than 50% of matches. The present study compared the effects of playing venue on hormonal responses and psychological state of inter-university volleyball players at home and away ground. A total of 96 male players age, 18 to 24 years from eight different public and private universities were selected as the subject in this study. Matches were scheduled in such a manner so that each team would play one match on home ground and one on away ground. The results of this study showed that a 13% reduction in the testosterone level of players was seen on the opponent’s home ground before playing the match, whereas, 18% elevation in cortisol level of players was recorded on the opponent’s home ground before-match. Psychological measures indicated that players’ cognitive and somatic anxiety levels were increased on away ground (10% and 13%, respectively) whereas, their self-confidence level declined  by 17% on an opponent’s home ground before the commencement of the match. The present study supports the notion that there are differences in pre-competition hormonal and psychological states that may play a key role in ‘the home advantage’ which could affect players’ behavior and match outcomes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 30-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Oluwafunmilayo Obalade ◽  
Kayode Kingsley Arogundade

The study was borne out of the need to assess the effect of ethical climate on deviant behavior among employees in the educational institutions and the need to ascertain whether workplace deviant behavior has a force to bear with institutional ownership. Questionnaires (375) were distributed among the academic and administrative staff of Ekiti State University (EKSU), Afe Babalola University Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA) and Elizade University, Ilara-Mokin (EU); selected using multistage sampling technique. Descriptive statistics (table, percentage) and inferential statistics (simple regression) were employed to analyse the data. Simple regression was used to analyse the data. Based on the test of the hypothesis, the study found that deviant behavior among employees of selected public and private universities can be significantly determined by ethical climate factors. Ethical climate contributed significantly to deviant behaviors in the public and private universities showing probability of t-statistic (.012 &.022) lesser than 5%. Hence, it is concluded that the ethical climate or wrong ethical system is the major determinant of deviant behaviors in selected public and private universities.


Geographies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-62
Author(s):  
Ujjwal Das ◽  
Barkha Chaplot ◽  
Hazi Mohammad Azamathulla

Skilled birth attendance and institutional delivery have been advocated for reducing maternal, neonatal mortality and infant mortality (NMR and IMR). This paper examines the role of place of delivery with respect to neo-natal and infant mortality in India using four rounds of the Indian National Family Health Survey conducted in 2015–2016. The place of birth has been categorized as “at home” or “public and private institution.” The role of place of delivery on neo-natal and infant mortality was examined by using multivariate hazard regression models adjusted for clus-tering and relevant maternal, socio-economic, pregnancy and new-born characteristics. There were 141,028 deliveries recorded in public institutions and 54,338 in private institutions. The esti-mated neonatal mortality rate in public and private institutions during this period was 27 and 26 per 1000 live births respectively. The study shows that when the mother delivers child at home, the chances of neonatal mortality risks are higher than the mortality among children born at the health facility centers. Regression analysis also indicates that a professionally qualified provider′s antenatal treatment and assistance greatly decreases the risks of neonatal mortality. The results of the study illustrate the importance of the provision of institutional facilities and proper pregnancy in the prevention of neonatal and infant deaths. To improve the quality of care during and imme-diately after delivery in health facilities, particularly in public hospitals and in rural areas, accel-erated strengthening is required.


Author(s):  
Lidia Borghi ◽  
Elaine C. Meyer ◽  
Elena Vegni ◽  
Roberta Oteri ◽  
Paolo Almagioni ◽  
...  

To describe the experience of the Italian Program to Enhance Relations and Communication Skills (PERCS-Italy) for difficult healthcare conversations. PERCS-Italy has been offered in two different hospitals in Milan since 2008. Each workshop lasts 5 h, enrolls 10–15 interdisciplinary participants, and is organized around simulations and debriefing of two difficult conversations. Before and after the workshops, participants rate their preparation, communication, relational skills, confidence, and anxiety on 5-point Likert scales. Usefulness, quality, and recommendation of the program are also assessed. Descriptive statistics, t-tests, repeated-measures ANOVA, and Chi-square were performed. A total of 72 workshops have been offered, involving 830 interdisciplinary participants. Participants reported improvements in all the dimensions (p < 0.001) without differences across the two hospitals. Nurses and other professionals reported a greater improvement in preparation, communication skills, and confidence, compared to physicians and psychosocial professionals. Usefulness, quality, and recommendation of PERCS programs were highly rated, without differences by discipline. PERCS-Italy proved to be adaptable to different hospital settings, public and private. After the workshops, clinicians reported improvements in self-reported competencies when facing difficult conversations. PERCS-Italy’s sustainability is based on the flexible format combined with a solid learner-centered approach. Future directions include implementation of booster sessions to maintain learning and the assessment of behavioral changes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-113
Author(s):  
Farrah Neumann ◽  
Matthew Kanwit

AbstractSince many linguistic structures are variable (i. e. conveyed by multiple forms), building a second-language grammar critically involves developing sociolinguistic competence (Canale and Swain. 1980. Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics 1(1). 1–47), including knowledge of contexts in which to use one form over another (Bayley and Langman. 2004. Variation in the group and the individual: Evidence from second language acquisition. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 42(4). 303–318). Consequently, researchers interested in such competence have increasingly analyzed the study-abroad context to gauge learners’ ability to approximate local norms following a stay abroad, due to the quality and quantity of input to which learners may gain access (Lafford. 2006. The effects of study abroad vs. classroom contexts on Spanish SLA: Old assumptions, new insights and future research directions. In Carol Klee & Timothy Face (eds.), Selected proceedings of the 7th conference on the acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese as first and second languages, 1–25. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project). Nevertheless, the present study is the first to examine native or learner variation between imperative (e. g. ven ‘come’) and optative Spanish commands (e. g. que vengas ‘come’). We first performed a corpus analysis to determine the linguistic factors to manipulate in a contextualized task, which elicited commands from learners before and after four weeks abroad in Alcalá de Henares, Spain. Their overall rates of selection and predictive factors were compared to local native speakers (NSs) and a control group of at-home learners.Results revealed that the abroad learners more closely approached NS rates of selection following the stay abroad. Nonetheless, for both learner groups conditioning by independent variables only partially approximated the NS system, which was more complex than previously suggested.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 508
Author(s):  
Michael Schaefer ◽  
Julian Hellmann-Regen ◽  
Sören Enge

Stress belongs to the most frequent negative feelings people are confronted with in daily life. Strategies against acute stress include, e.g., relaxation techniques or medications, but it is also known that placebos can successfully reduce negative emotional stress. While it is widely held that placebos require deception to provoke a response, recent studies demonstrate intriguing evidence that placebos may work even without concealment (e.g., against anxiety or pain). Most of these studies are based on self-report questionnaires and do not include physiological measures. Here we report results of a study examining whether placebos without deception reduce acute stress. A total of 53 healthy individuals received either placebos without deception or no pills before participating in a laboratory stress test (Maastricht Acute Stress Test, MAST). We recorded self-report stress measures and cortisol responses before and after the MAST. Results showed no significant differences between the placebo and the control group, but when comparing participants with high relative to low beliefs in the power of placebos we found significant lower anxiety and cortisol responses for the placebo believers. These results show that non-deceptive placebos may successfully reduce acute anxiety and stress, but only in participants who had a strong belief in placebos. We discuss the results by suggesting that open-label placebos might be a possible treatment to reduce stress at least for some individuals.


1995 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-188
Author(s):  
María José Lemaitre ◽  
Herb R. Kells

1997 ◽  
pp. 172-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
G Dickstein ◽  
D Spigel ◽  
E Arad ◽  
C Shechner

There are many suggestions in the literature that the adrenal gland is more sensitive to ACTH in the evening than in the morning. However, all these studies in humans were conducted when the basal cortisol level was not suppressed, and were based on the observation that, after stimulation, the increases in cortisol differed, though the peak values were the same. To examine this, we established the lowest ACTH dose that caused a maximal cortisol stimulation even when the basal cortisol was suppressed, and used a smaller dose of ACTH for morning and evening stimulation. The lowest ACTH dose to achieve maximal stimulation was found to be 1.0 microgram, with which dose cortisol concentration increased to 607.2 +/- 182 nmol/l, compared with 612.7 +/- 140.8 nmol/l with the 250 micrograms test (P > 0.3). The use of smaller doses of ACTH (0.8 and 0.6 microgram) achieved significantly lower cortisol responses (312 +/- 179.4 and 323 +/- 157.3 nmol/l respectively; both P < 0.01 compared with the 1 microgram test). When a submaximal ACTH dose (0.6 microgram) was used to stimulate the adrenal at 0800 and 1600 h, after pretreatment with dexamethasone, no difference in response was noted at either 15 min (372.6 +/- 116 compared with 394.7 +/- 129.7 nmol/l) or 30 min (397.4 +/- 176.6 compared with 403 +/- 226.3 nmol/l; P > 0.3 for both times). These results show that 1.0 microgram ACTH, used latterly as a low-dose test, is very potent in stimulating the adrenal, even when baseline cortisol is suppressed; smaller doses cause reduction of this potency. Our data show that there is probably no diurnal variation in the response of the adrenal to ACTH, if one eliminates the influence of the basal cortisol level and uses physiologic rather than superphysiologic stimuli.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document