Description of sport participation profiles and transitions across profiles during adolescence

ABSTRACT

Few studies describe sport participation profiles in the general population using multiple characteristics. Therefore, the objective of this study was to identify sport participation profiles during adolescence and to describe transitions across profiles from grades 5 to 12 (age 10 to 18 years). We used data from 916 participants (55% girls; age 10–12 years at inception) of the Monitoring Activities of Teenagers to Comprehend their Habits (MATCH) study. Participants self-reported involvement in 36 organized and unorganized physical activities three times/year from grades 5 to 12 (24 data collection cycles; 2011–2018). At each school grade, we derived four categorical variables of sport involvement: number of organized sports, number of unorganized activities, weekly sessions, and number of year-round activities. To identify sport participation profiles, we used latent class analysis at each grade. To characterize transitions between sport participation profiles across grades, we used latent transition analysis. Five distinct sport participation profiles emerged: “non-participants”, “unorganized activities only”, “single-sport low frequency”, “single sport high frequency”, and “multi-sport”. Only “multi-sport” participants were unlikely to be classified as “non-participants” over time. Encouraging multi-sport participation might help protect against later non-participation. This study helps identify important times to intervene for improving physical activity levels.

KEYWORDS:

• Latent class analysis
• transitions
• sport participation profile
• physical activity
• youth

Disclosure statement

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

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The MATCH study obtained ethical approval from the Université de Sherbrooke research ethics committee (#2012-321, 11-025). All participants provided written and informed assent and their parents provided written consent.

Consent for publication

Not applicable

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available to insure confidentiality and that any secondary analyses correspond to the objectives of the research project but are available from [email protected] on reasonable request.

Authors contributions

All authors meet standard authorship criteria. FG conceived the research objectives and performed the analyses. FG and MB drafted the manuscript. All authors interpreted the data. MB designed the original study and obtained the funding. All authors revised the work critically for important intellectual content. All authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript, and agree with the order of presentation of the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The MATCH study is supported by the New Brunswick Health Research Foundation(20130729), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (435-2016-0888), and Sport Canada through the joint Sport Participation Research Initiative (862-2010-0001 and 862-2014-0002). FG is supported by the NBHRF & CIHR-SPOR-MSSU Doctoral studentship, and the Fondation l’Assomption Bourse Denis-Losier. The funding organisations were not involved in any stage of the study (design of the study, collection, analysis, interpretation of data or in writing the manuscript)