Powless Matthew D, Pilot Zachary A, Brown Elisabeth R, Ealum Mikaila C, Back Kaitlyn N, Yamashita Sabrina, Mindiola Kaitlin
Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, University of Evansville, 1800 Lincoln Ave. Evansville, IN 47714, USA.
Psychology Department, University of Southern Indiana, 8600 University Blvd., Evansville, IN 47712, USA.
Sports (Basel). 2025 Jun 20;13(7):194. doi: 10.3390/sports13070194.
Over the last two and a half decades, there has been a surge of research into adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). ACEs have been found to be a significant predictor of mental health outcomes in adulthood, and researchers have begun to explore the relationship between ACEs and mental health outcomes in athletes. However, to the best of the authors' knowledge, no study has directly compared the mental health of student-athletes to non-student-athletes in the context of exposure to ACEs. In the present study, we compared psychological outcomes observed in college students (123 student-athletes and 149 non-student-athletes) on two mental health variables-depressive symptoms and difficulties in emotion regulation-at one university in the U.S. Results indicated that exposure to ACEs had a significant effect on both depressive symptoms and difficulties in emotion regulation, while student-athlete status only had a significant effect on depressive symptoms. There was no significant interaction effect between exposure to ACEs and student-athlete status. This pattern of main effects and an absence of an interaction effect remained even when the psychological trait of hardiness was controlled for. The implications and limitations of these results will be discussed.
在过去二十五年里，对童年不良经历（ACEs）的研究激增。人们发现，ACEs是成年后心理健康结果的重要预测因素，研究人员已开始探索ACEs与运动员心理健康结果之间的关系。然而，据作者所知，尚无研究在ACEs暴露的背景下直接比较学生运动员与非学生运动员的心理健康状况。在本研究中，我们在美国一所大学比较了大学生（123名学生运动员和149名非学生运动员）在两个心理健康变量——抑郁症状和情绪调节困难方面的心理结果。结果表明，ACEs暴露对抑郁症状和情绪调节困难均有显著影响，而学生运动员身份仅对抑郁症状有显著影响。ACEs暴露与学生运动员身份之间没有显著的交互作用。即使对心理韧性这一心理特质进行控制，这种主效应模式和缺乏交互作用的情况依然存在。将对这些结果的意义和局限性进行讨论。
