Anxiety and athlete performance: a systematic narrative review of the mutual influence of these concepts

Abstract Purpose This systematic review was designed to assess the existence of a potential bidirectional relationship between competitive anxiety and sport performance among professional athletes. Psychotherapists believe that the relationship between these 2 parameters can be directly proportional and, moreover, can go both ways, as they have systematically observed in the general population. Methods For this purpose, a number of 45 descriptive studies were selected from the cybernetic literature to estimate the level of anxiety in competitive athletes, the variables that may influence this parameter and the level of performance achieved as a result. Without therapeutic intervention, anxiety parameters and its covariates were assessed to detect the influence on sport performance and predict the outcome of a competition based on these concepts. Results The systematic review of these studies revealed that competitive anxiety has a major and statistically significant influence on the competitive situation a an athlete, having an important action on their career in the short and long term. Conclusions This analysis has succeeded in demonstrating that a certain degree of anxiety, within the limits imposed by the game experience and through fine psychological mechanisms, can become an asset in terms of achieving the chosen goal in the athlete’s career.