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Prospective Associations between Sport Participation and Indices of Mental Health across Adolescence

  • Empirical Research
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Abstract

Youth sport offers physical and psychosocial components that may be beneficial for adolescents’ mental health, but the prospective directionality between sport participation and mental health has not been clearly established. The current study examined longitudinal associations between sport participation (individual and team sport) and mental health indices (depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, emotional symptoms, hyperactivity symptoms, conduct problems, peer problems, and prosocial behavior) across adolescence (ages 12–17) in a nationally representative Australian sample of 3956 participants at T1 (Mage = 12.41 years, SD = 0.49; 49% female), 3537 at T2 (Mage = 14.41 years, SD = 0.49; 49% female), and 3089 at T3 (Mage = 16.46 years, SD = 0.51; 49% female). Using random intercept cross-lagged panel modeling, several significant within-person effects were found. Notably, greater participation in team sport prospectively predicted fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety at subsequent timepoints. This study increases the understanding of how sport participation may relate to mental health among adolescents and provides critical evidence to inform policy.

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Notes

  1. Within the LSAC, items that pertain to involvement in community sport transitioned from parent-reported to child-reported in Wave 6.

  2. Note that the primary findings from the sensitivity analyses conducted using only complete cases did not differ from the models reported in the manuscript, which used full information maximization likelihood to retain all cases and all available information.

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Authors’ Contributions

S.G. conceived the study, performed the data analyses and coordinated the first draft of the manuscript and its submission; J.S. organized the data and helped conceive the study, assisted with the interpretation of the results, and participated in manuscript drafting; S.V. contributed to study conception, the interpretation of the findings and manuscript drafting. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

S.G. is supported by a training fellowship from the National Institutes of Health (T32AA007455). The content of this manuscript is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

Data Sharing and Declaration

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available without application procedures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Scott Graupensperger

  2. School of Psychology, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia

    Jordan Sutcliffe & Stewart A. Vella

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  1. Scott Graupensperger
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  2. Jordan Sutcliffe
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  3. Stewart A. Vella
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Correspondence to Scott Graupensperger.

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Ethical standards were adhered to in all aspects of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. For more information on specific procedures and ethical clearance, please visit: https://growingupinaustralia.gov.au/.

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All participants in the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children provided informed consent prior to participating.

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Graupensperger, S., Sutcliffe, J. & Vella, S.A. Prospective Associations between Sport Participation and Indices of Mental Health across Adolescence. J Youth Adolescence 50, 1450–1463 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-021-01416-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-021-01416-0

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