Mental health in Danish football: The role of protective factors in youth academies

Football, and sports in general, offers many opportunities to promote mental health and well-being, and to develop social and emotional skills. The sporting context can be an excellent social-emotional training ground, where players engage in teamwork and make use of psychological and emotional skills (Aquilina 2013). There may, however, be a downside to the intense involvement in organized sport that is required to be successful in elite football. The aim of this presentation is determine which factors that respectively correlates with mental disorders and which correlates with factors that supports well-being and mental health in elite football. Sixty-Eight Danish youth football players (M age = 15.59, SD = 1.18) participated in an online survey which included the short version of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (SWEMWBS), the Center for Epistemological Depression Study (CES-D), and the General Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) scale. Correlation analyses between well-being, depressive symptoms, anxiety, and factors related to mental health were conducted. Perceived stress from sport was negatively related to well-being (-.30) and positively to CES-D (.38) and GAD-7 (.34). Perceived stress in private life correlated negatively with well-being (-.38) and positively with CES-D (.52) and GAD-7 (.46). A sport environment that allows for autonomy and self-determination correlated positively with well-being (.33) but had no significant influence on depression and anxiety. Social support from the sport environment was positively correlated with well-being (.32) and negatively with CES-D (.28). The results regarding what and how football academies could consider developing psychosocial skills and develop an environment that supports mental health.

Aquilina D. (2013). A study of the relationship between elite athletes' educational development and sporting performance. International Journal of History in Sport, 30, 374-392.