Sullivan Nora, Breslin Gavin, McLaughlin Marian, Shannon Stephen, Leavey Gerard, Dempster Martin
School of Psychology, Queens University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Bamford Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing, School of Psychology, Ulster University, Coleraine, Northern Ireland.
PLoS One. 2025 Mar 27;20(3):e0315315. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0315315. eCollection 2025.
Adolescent mental illness is of increasing concern, with a high prevalence in many parts of the world. Early engagement, detection and receiving support are warranted to reduce the severity of symptoms. Increasing mental health literacy (MHL) through sport to adolescents is one way of engaging young people and signposting them to services. The aim of this systematic review was to identify the effect of interventions, risk of bias, and theoretical application in sport-based adolescent mental health awareness programmes.
Six electronic databases (MEDLINE Ovid, PsycINFO, Scopus, CINAHL, SPORTDiscus, Cochrane) were searched from 2012 to September 2022 (updated January 2024). Inclusion criteria stated the sample had to include adolescents aged 11-17 years, include mental health outcomes, and a sport component.
Six studies met the inclusion criteria. Sample size ranged from nine to 816 participants. Four distinct sport-based programmes were evaluated, with three interventions applying a psychological behaviour change theory. The results of the interventions indicated positive effects on several indices of MHL, such as increased knowledge of mental health, depression and anxiety literacy and the recognition of disorders, increased resilience and intentions to provide help. It was found that addressing stigma remains a challenge. The interventions produced the most significant effects for those who scored lower at baseline measures and the younger cohorts.
Sport is useful for the engagement and dissemination of mental health awareness information to adolescents. Given the limited number of psychological theory informed interventions, there is a need for further interventions that explicitly adopt behaviour change theories and improve the quality of research design for these interventions. The findings from this review will be of interest to health promotion and public health practitioners and those designing mental health awareness programmes for adolescents.
PROSPERO CRD42022312260.
青少年心理健康问题日益受到关注，在世界许多地区患病率都很高。早期参与、检测和获得支持对于减轻症状的严重程度是必要的。通过体育活动提高青少年的心理健康素养（MHL）是吸引年轻人并引导他们寻求服务的一种方式。本系统评价的目的是确定基于体育活动的青少年心理健康意识项目中的干预效果、偏倚风险和理论应用情况。
检索了六个电子数据库（MEDLINE Ovid、PsycINFO、Scopus、CINAHL、SPORTDiscus、Cochrane），检索时间为2012年至2022年9月（2024年1月更新）。纳入标准规定样本必须包括11至17岁的青少年，包括心理健康结果，以及体育活动部分。
六项研究符合纳入标准。样本量从9名到816名参与者不等。评估了四个不同的基于体育活动的项目，其中三项干预措施应用了心理行为改变理论。干预结果表明，对心理健康素养的几个指标有积极影响，如心理健康知识、抑郁和焦虑素养的增加以及对疾病的认知，恢复力增强和提供帮助的意愿增加。发现消除污名化仍然是一个挑战。这些干预措施对基线测量得分较低的人群和较年轻的队列产生了最显著的效果。
体育活动有助于向青少年传播心理健康意识信息。鉴于采用心理理论的干预措施数量有限，需要进一步的干预措施明确采用行为改变理论，并提高这些干预措施的研究设计质量。本综述的结果将对健康促进和公共卫生从业者以及为青少年设计心理健康意识项目的人员有参考价值。
PROSPERO CRD42022312260
