ArticleJournal of athletic training2023
Does Increased Physical Activity Explain the Psychosocial Benefits of Sport Participation During COVID-19?
Article in Journal of athletic training, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 4 citations in OpenAlex.
- The impact of sports participation on psychological health and social outcomes in children and adolescents: a systematic review and update to the "Mental Health through Sport" conceptual model.Systematic reviews · 2026Pooled it
- What is known about pressure injury prevention and management approaches among individuals with mobility impairments participating in disability sport? A scoping review.Australian occupational therapy journal · 2026Review
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
contextAlthough the return to sports during COVID-19 has been associated with improvements in mental health and quality of life (QOL), whether these benefits are primarily due to increases in physical activity (PA) is unknown.
objectiveTo determine whether PA increases were responsible for the improvements in mental health and QOL among adolescents who returned to sport during the COVID-19 pandemic.
designCross-sectional study.
settingWisconsin secondary schools. PATIENTS OR OTHER
participantsA total of 559 adolescent athletes (age = 15.7 + 1.2 years, females = 43.6%) from 44 schools completed a survey in October 2020. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Demographic information, whether they had returned to sport participation, school instruction type, anxiety (Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7), depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-9), QOL (Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0), and PA (Hospital for Special Surgery Pediatric Functional Activity Brief Scale). Mediation analysis was used to assess whether the relationships between sport status and anxiety, depression, and QOL were mediated by PA.
resultsAt the time of the study, 171 (31%) had returned to play and 388 (69%) had not. Athletes who had returned to play had less anxiety (3.6 ± 0.4 versus 8.2 ± 0.6, P < .001) and depression (4.2 ± 0.4 versus 7.3 ± 0.6, P < .001) and higher QOL (88.1 ± 1.0 versus 80.2 ± 1.4, P < .001) and more PA (24.0 ± 0.5 versus 16.3 ± 0.7, P < .001). Physical activity explained a significant, but small, proportion of the difference in depression (22.1%, P = .02) and QOL (16.0%, P = .048) but not anxiety (6.6%, P = .20) between athletes who had and those who had not returned to play.
conclusionsIncreased PA was responsible for only a small portion of the improvements in depression and QOL among athletes who returned to sports. This suggests that most of the mental health benefits of sport participation for adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic were independent of the benefits of increased PA.
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