Mental toughness among International and National para-badminton players

Background: Mental toughness is an important psychological characteristic in sports that determines the performance and achievement of an athlete. Para-badminton athletes have extra physical as well as social challenges, hence mental resilience becomes all the more important. This research investigates differences in mental toughness among international and national para-badminton athletes based on four factors: control, commitment, challenge, and confidence. Materials and Methods: 20 para-badminton players (10 international and 10 national) were chosen randomly from the 6th National Para-Badminton Championship 2023-24. The Mental Toughness Questionnaire (MTQ-18) of Clough et al. (2002) was used to measure mental toughness. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics, the Shapiro-Wilk test, Levene's test, and an independent t-test (Mann-Whitney U test for non-normally distributed data) at a level of 0.05 significance. Results: The results showed that international para-badminton athletes exhibited much greater control of emotions and pressure (p = 0.011) than national players. No significant difference was observed between the two groups in commitment (p = 0.846), challenge (p = 0.291), confidence (p = 0.249), and overall mental toughness (p = 0.566). Conclusion: The research identifies that the international para-badminton players have higher emotional and pressure control, most probably because of being used to high-level competitions. The other dimensions of mental toughness were comparable between both groups. The findings highlight the importance of psychological training camps to increase the mental toughness of national-level players so as to assist their graduation to international competitions. Longitudinal studies and interventions should be studied in the future to establish mental toughness in para-badminton players.