Mental Health Associations With Youth Sport Participation Exist in the Absence of Coaching

• In Event: Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Topic - Health, Growth, Injury

Abstract

Sport participation typically predicts favorable mental health outcomes for youth beyond the benefits of physical activity alone (Geidne et al., 2013). However, conditions of the sport environment can positively or negatively influence the mental health of young athletes (Fraser-Thomas et al., 2005). Youth sport programs often rely on coaches to create supportive, caring environments (Gano-Overway et al., 2018) despite little research on whether coach presence is necessary for positive associations between sports participation and mental health to occur.

Our objective was to explore the associations between adolescent boys’ and girls’ subjective mental health and their frequency of sport participation with and without a coach. We predicted that 1) sport participation would be positively associated with subjective mental health in youth, and that 2) compared to sport participation without a coach, sport participation with a coach would be more strongly associated with subjective mental health in youth.

Youth (N = 147; 81 girls), aged 12 to 15 years, were participants in a follow-up assessment of the Socially and Emotionally Aware Kids Canadian longitudinal intervention study. Participants answered four questions adapted from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (Cycle 7) rating how often they participated in sports, each varying from 0 (never) to 3 (4 or more times per week). Two questions asked about their sports participation with a coach (one in the school context and the other outside of it), and analogous questions asked about sports participation without a coach. Participants rated their well-being over the past two weeks using the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (Keyes, 2009), which included 14 questions on a 7-point scale.

Total sport participation (r = .42, p < .01), sport participation with a coach (r = .38, p < .01), and sport participation without a coach (r = .42, p < .01) were positively associated with subjective mental health. The correlation between sport participation with a coach and sport participation without a coach was high (r = .74, p < .01). A hierarchical regression analyses revealed that after controlling for sport participation without a coach, the association between sport participation with a coach and subjective mental health was no longer significant, ß = .173, CI95% [-.027, .224], SE = .063, p = .123. Sport participation accounted for 17.9% of the variance in subjective mental health, and age and gender did not account for any variance.

Consistent with the first hypothesis, results replicated previous research that sport participation is positively associated with mental health in youth (Geidne et al., 2013). Contrary to expectations, however, while coaches may help foster a supportive sport environment, our findings suggest that the association between mental health and sport participation in youth exists with or without a coach. Therefore, encouraging all youth to participate in sport, irrespective of coach presence, may help foster positive mental health. However, because of the correlational nature of our research, the nature of the relation between mental well-being and sports is impossible to determine. Both longitudinal and intervention studies are needed to establish causal connections.

Authors

• Jenn Leckey, Dalhousie University
  Presenting Author

• Sophie Jacques, Dalhousie University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jean Hughes, Dalhousie University
  Non-Presenting Author