Energy drinks, substance use, and posttraumatic stress symptoms among Palestinian athletes: the mediating role of perceived self-efficacy and resilience

Abstract

The current study aimed to test the association between energy drinks, substance use, and posttraumatic stress symptoms, and the mediating role of perceived self-efficacy and resilience among Palestinian athletes. The sample of our study consisted of 480 Palestinian athletes: 160 women and 320 men, all were selected from five Palestinian universities located in the West Bank of Palestine. The findings of our study revealed that energy drinks positively correlated with substance abuse, and posttraumatic stress symptoms. In addition, a negative association was found between perceived self-efficacy, substance use, and posttraumatic stress symptoms. Moreover, a negative association was found between resilience, substance use, and posttraumatic stress symptoms. Results of Structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed that resilience and perceived self-efficacy mediated the association between energy drinks, substance use and posttraumatic stress symptoms. Our findings underline the importance of enhancing resilience and perceived self-efficacy among athletes to prevent initial substance use/misuse, as several traits found in resilient athletes such as high self-esteem, empathy, help-seeking, and self-awareness are important in deterring athletes from engaging in harmful substances like tobacco, marijuana, and alcohol.

Keywords:

• Energy drinks
• substance use
• self-efficacy
• resilience
• Palestinian athletes

Authors’ contributions

All authors contributed equally to this work. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of An-Najah Institutional Review Board (IRB), the American Psychological Association (APA, 2010) and with the 2013 Helsinki Declaration. Informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests. All authors agreed in submitting the manuscript to the journal.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

No funding was received for this study.