Original articleYears Participating in Sports During Childhood Predicts Mental Health in Adolescence: A 5-Year Longitudinal Study
Section snippets
Methods
Data were drawn from the Monitoring Activities of Teenagers to Comprehend their Habits (MATCH) study, an ongoing investigation [26] of participants recruited in grade 5 and 6 in 17 schools in New Brunswick, Canada. A total of 802 participants (51% of those eligible) age 10.3 ± .6 years on average were enrolled in the first year. Additional students joined the study in the second to fourth year for a total of 937 children (55.2% female). Data were collected in self-report questionnaires every
Results
In years 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, 765, 703, 674, 582, and 532 participants, respectively, provided data in at least two of the three data collection cycles over the year. A total of 496 participants were classified by sport profile in four or five of the first 5 years, and 394 had complete data on mental health in year 6; of 394 participants, 318 with data on both variables were retained for analysis (Figure 1). Mean (standard deviation [SD]) age at inception was 10.2 (.6) years in both girls and
Discussion
Because sport participation is associated with mental health benefits [6], [7], [9], numerous authors call for widespread promotion of sport. However, few studies examine whether involvement in recreational or performance sport relates differently to mental health. Our study extends past research [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [34] by investigating the longitudinal association between sport profile and mental health in youth. We found that, compared with nonparticipation, both sport profiles are
Acknowledgments
I.D. is supported by a Fonds de recherche du Québec—Santé postdoctoral fellowship, C.M.S. holds a Canada Research Chair in Physical Activity and Mental Health, M.-P.S. holds a Junior 1 Salary Award from the Fonds de recherche du Québec—Santé, J.O.L. holds a Canada Research Chair in the Early Determinants of Adult Chronic Disease.
Authors' contributions: I.D. conceptualized the objectives, conducted all analyses, and drafted and revised the article. C.M.S., M.-P.S., P.A.N., F.G., J.B., and
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Conflicts of interest: The authors have indicated that they have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Financial disclosure: The authors have indicated that they have no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose.