Participation in sports activities and suicidal behaviour: A risk or a protective factor?

Abstract

In order to study whether participation in sports has a protective impact on suicidal behaviour in students, the data from 11 Youth Risk Behavior Surveys were combined providing a sample size of 152,858 students. The results indicated that sports participation was a protective factor against suicidal behaviour for European-American boys and girls. However, for African-American, Hispanic-American and Asian-American girls, participation in sports might be a risk factor for suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. For boys from minority ethnic groups, participation in sports was not associated with suicidal behaviour.

Keywords:

• suicide
• sport participation
• ethnicity
• sex differences

Notes

1. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health; Harris & Udry, 2002).