Perceived coaches’ health promotion activity, maintenance of participation in sports, and lifestyle habits among emerging adults: a four-year follow-up study

Abstract

Objectives

This study focused on how adolescents’ perceptions of coaches’ health promotion activity predict maintained participation and dropout in organized sports in emerging adulthood. In addition, differences in lifestyle habits between maintainers, dropouts, and nonparticipants in organized sports were explored.

Materials and Methods

Overall, 616 adolescents reported organized sports participation in the Finnish Health Promoting Sports Club (FHPSC) study at ages 15 and 19. Of these, 323 reported coach’s health promotion activity on health topics at the age of 15. An index of a coach’s general health promotion activity was formed. At age 19, all study participants reported their lifestyle habits.

Results

Among males, those who had perceived coaches’ general health promotion activity as frequent were more likely to be maintainers than dropouts (48.6% vs. 20.0%) (p = .002). Among females, there was no significant difference (32.0% vs. 28.4%). Logistic regression analysis adjusted for gender showed that perceiving coach’s general health promotion activity as frequent increased the odds of being a maintainer rather than a dropout. Moreover, maintainers had higher odds of having healthy lifestyle habits when compared to nonparticipants (related to physical activity; sleep; fruit and vegetable consumption; and cigarette use) or dropouts (related to physical activity; and cigarette use). In addition, dropouts had higher odds of having healthy lifestyle habits than nonparticipants (related to sleep; and cigarette use).

Conclusions

Perceiving coaches’ health promotion activity as frequent was related to maintained participation in organized sports among males. Maintainers were more likely to have more healthy lifestyle habits than nonparticipants and dropouts. There is a need to invest in coaches’ health promotion activity when it is infrequent. A more detailed understanding is needed of coaches’ health promotion activity that supports both maintained participation in sports, especially among females, and healthy lifestyle habits in emerging adulthood.

KEY MESSAGE

There is a need to invest in coaches’ health promotion activity when it is infrequent in order to support adolescents’ continued participation in organized sports and healthy lifestyle habits in emerging adulthood.

Keywords:

• Cohort study
• settings-based health promotion
• health behavior
• sports club

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all the sports clubs, schools, and adolescents who participated in the HPSC study and all those who assisted with the data collection.

Authors contributions

SK was the principal investigator for the HPSC study and was a major contributor to reviewing the manuscript together with KR. KR and JV designed and conducted the analyses and KR drafted the manuscript. PK, TA, OH, RK, JP, KS, KT, AU, MV, TV, JV, and SK critically reviewed the final manuscript. All authors contributed to the design of the study and have read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Data availability

The data used in this study are not publicly available because they contain identification information. However, some parts of the data may be requested by the principal investigator (SK) upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education and Culture (major, Grant Numbers: 6/091/2011, 28/626/2016), the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health (minor, Grant Number: 152/THL/TE/2012) encompassing all parts of the study. The funders played no role in the design, data collection, statistical analysis, or preparation of this manuscript.