Development of a questionnaire for the assessment of sources of stress in Spanish soccer referees

The aim of the present study was to elaborate a self-report questionnaire to identify Spanish soccer referees sources of stress and to provide a tool for the detection of referees with high levels of stress. The Soccer Referee Stress Questionnaire was administered to a sample of 138 referees, and a principal component analysis with varimax rotation revealed a 5-factor solution that accounted for 65.7% of the variance. The final version of the test had a Cronbach s alpha of 0.88. The most important sources of stress were related to the referee s perceived competence and, to the referee-supervisor s rating of matches.