École de Psychoéducation, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
School Environment Research Group (SERG), Université de Montréal, Montréal, Quebec, Canada.
J Epidemiol Community Health. 2018 Jul;72(7):575-581. doi: 10.1136/jech-2017-209656. Epub 2018 Mar 14.
Engaging in sport has been suggested to be mitigate against psychological distress. Using a prospective-longitudinal design, we examine whether sport participation is associated with reduced psychological difficulties in adolescents and whether associations differ by sport and personal characteristics.
17 550 adolescents from grade 7 to 10 (mean age=14.4 years old) self-reported on sport participation, depressive symptoms, social anxiety symptoms and loneliness in Spring 2007 and 1 year later. Analyses tested the association between sport participation and subsequent psychological difficulties using linear regression, while adjusting for pre-existing psychological and sociodemographic characteristics. Analyses also verified whether associations differed by sport frequency (weekly/more than weekly) and type (team/individual) using Wald tests of parameter constraints, as well as sex, age and pre-existing psychological difficulties using interaction terms.
After adjusting for potential confounders, sport participation predicted lower social anxiety symptoms (beta=-0.02 (-0.04, -0.01)) and loneliness (beta=-0.04 (-0.05, -0.02)), but not depressive symptoms. Moderation analyses showed that sport participation predicted greater reductions in depressive symptoms, social anxiety symptoms and loneliness in adolescents with higher baseline scores on each outcome. Associations did not differ by sport frequency and type, sex and age. Post hoc analyses revealed bidirectional associations between sport participation and social anxiety symptoms and loneliness.
Sport participation predicts small reductions in adolescent psychological distress. Reductions seem most important in youth experiencing greater pre-existing psychological difficulty. Our findings suggest that sport participation represents a protective factor that supports psychological resilience in at-risk youth.
参与体育运动被认为可以减轻心理困扰。本研究采用前瞻性纵向设计，考察了运动参与是否与青少年心理困难的减少有关，以及这种关联是否因运动类型和个人特征而异。
2007 年春季和 1 年后，7 至 10 年级的 17550 名青少年自我报告了运动参与、抑郁症状、社交焦虑症状和孤独感。线性回归分析检验了运动参与与随后心理困难之间的关联，同时调整了预先存在的心理和社会人口学特征。通过 Wald 参数约束检验还验证了关联是否因运动频率（每周/每周以上）和类型（团体/个人）而异，以及是否因性别、年龄和预先存在的心理困难而存在差异。
在调整了潜在的混杂因素后，运动参与与较低的社交焦虑症状（β=-0.02（-0.04，-0.01））和孤独感（β=-0.04（-0.05，-0.02））相关，但与抑郁症状无关。调节分析表明，在每个结局的基线得分较高的青少年中，运动参与预测抑郁症状、社交焦虑症状和孤独感的减少幅度更大。关联不因运动频率和类型、性别和年龄而不同。事后分析显示，运动参与与社交焦虑症状和孤独感之间存在双向关联。
运动参与预测青少年心理困扰的小幅度减少。在预先存在更大心理困难的青少年中，这种减少似乎更为重要。我们的研究结果表明，运动参与代表了一种保护因素，支持高危青少年的心理适应能力。
