Psychosocial outcomes of sport participation for middle-aged and older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis

ABSTRACT

Narrative reviews indicate psychological and social benefits of sport participation for the ageing population. However, no quantitative synthesis of quantitative studies on this topic has been conducted yet. We evaluated the magnitude and heterogeneity of the effects of sport participation on psychosocial outcomes for middle-aged and older adults (>35 years). Ten databases were searched in July 2020. Quantitative studies (k = 25) of middle-aged and older adults, measuring at least one psychosocial outcome of sport participation were included. Multilevel meta-analysis showed that the association between sport participation and psychosocial outcomes was small, yet significant. Moderation analyses revealed that the pooled effect differed according to outcome type; small to moderate associations were observed for social, positive psychological, perceived physical, and cognitive outcomes, but not for negative psychological outcomes. Risk of bias, assessed using the QualSyst tool, indicated low quality of evidence. Our findings suggest that sport participation is associated with multiple psychosocial benefits for middle-aged and older adults that appear invariant across participant-related and sport-related characteristics. We found no evidence of publication bias, but studies were underpowered and rated as low quality. Our review provides quantitative evidence for the psychosocial benefits of sport participation for adults, complementing existing qualitative research on this topic.

KEYWORDS:

• Sport participation
• mental health
• middle age
• older adults
• psychological well-being
• ageing

Acknowledgements

We thank academic librarians Ms Diana Blackwood and Ms Vanessa Varis for their advice on developing the search strategy. HS contributed to the development of the research idea, design of the study, the literature search, data screening and extraction, conducting of statistical analysis, and managed all aspects of manuscript preparation and submission. DFG contributed to data screening and extraction, and conducting of statistical analysis. MDM assisted with data screening, extraction and quality assessment. EQ contributed to the development of the research idea and design of the study. NN conceived the research idea, contributed to the design of the study, provided methodological and theoretical input, assisted with data screening, and writing and editing of the manuscript. All authors provided methodological input and theoretical expertise contributing to the production of this manuscript, and reviewed and approved the final version.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The datasets analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This research was conducted as part of Hamsini Sivaramakrishnan's PhD studies. Hamsini's PhD is supported by a scholarship provided by Curtin University (i.e. Curtin International Postgraduate Research Scholarship).