Sport participation and mental health among youth: A systematic review of prospective studies
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The purpose of this systematic review was to examine prospective evidence that sport participation is associated with better mental health among youth. Following standard protocol, a systematic search of 4 electronic databases (Medline, PsychInfo, Scopus and SportDiscus) was conducted between May and June of 2014. Articles were chosen for the review if the study used a prospective-based, longitudinal design and examined relationships between sport participation and any measure of mental health over at least one year. A total of 20 studies were identified. Self-esteem was the most commonly evaluated mental health outcome (n=10) followed by depressive symptoms (n=8). Findings were mixed as to whether sport participation improved self-esteem over time. The majority showed no association (n=6). Five out of eight studies reported that sport participation was associated with lower depressive symptoms over time. These associations were generally weak as was the proportion of variance explained in depression. Notably, there was some evidence that team, as opposed to individual, sport participation was protective. Two studies reported a reduction in anxiety over time while one study reported an increase in health-related quality of life among children participating in sports. Overall, evidence is mixed that sport participation improves mental health over time compared to non-participants. It is also difficult to draw strong conclusions based on the existing evidence base given how sport participation is being assessed and that any positive relationships found may reflect a selective aggregation of individuals who bring fewer problems across different domains of functioning. Research and program evaluations are needed to identify the processes involved within sporting contexts that maximise the likelihood that children and youth will experience mental health benefit.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.010 | 0.045 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.007 | 0.008 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.011 | 0.012 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".