Abstract:

Among weight-sports like wrestling where athletes are required to weigh-in before the competitions and their weights are measured; athletes generally lose weight rapidly. Athletes who carry out rapid weight loss through sweat room, liquid and nutrition restrictions undergo dehydration. The current study was undertaken to examine the depressive status caused by dehydration among the elite wrestlers. 136 wrestlers who participated in Turkish Interuniversity Wrestling Championship were included in the study. Together with Beck’s Depression Inventory BDI used to determine depression levels of the wrestlers; personal information forms that addressed age, height, weight, amount of weight lost before the competition and annual competition numbers were administered to the athletes one hour before weigh-in before competition. For the data assessment; correlations among the variables were investigated with correlation analyses and Independent Samples T Test for two groups while one way variance analysis One Way ANOVA was used for the groups more than two groups. As a result; when depression levels of the athletes who got dehydrated before a competition were examined; it was found out that there was a positive correlation between the amount of the weight lost and depression levels and as the amount of the weight lost increased so did depression levels p

Keywords: