TDNet Discover

Background: Mental health issues are increasing among children and adolescents. Some of the main issues are anxiety, depression, self-esteem, and suicidal ideation. Treating these mental health issues in children can be difficult because it is not ideal to start a child on antidepressants. However, there are other ways to alleviate some of these mental health issues. A potential method of treatment is physical activity. Objective: To determine if there is sufficient data to use physical activity in the form of team sports to treat mental health issues among children and adolescents. Methods: An evidence-based medicine systematic review (EBM-SR) was conducted using three databases including PubMed, Google Scholar, and South College Library. Search phrases included “adolescent, mental health, sports, affect”, “allintitle: depression adolescent sport”, “sports participation and mental health”, and “adolescent mental health and sports”. The following limits were used: within the last 10 years, systematic review, controlled study, meta-analysis, clinical studies, cohort studies, full text access, studies written in English, peer reviewed, and patients must be humans. Study population included children ages 6 to 17, children with self-reported or clinically diagnosed depression and/or anxiety, and regular team sport participation with three or more people per team. An induplicate search and review process were conducted to select the included studies. A quality assessment and data extraction were utilized to qualitatively analyze the included studies. Results: Three studies included in this research were one meta-analysis and systematic review, one systematic review, and one cohort study. All three studies were rated as “good”. The three studies provide evidence that sports participation can be used as a method of treatment to reduce anxiety and depression among children. Conclusion: Organized sports participation can be used to reduce the occurrence of mental illness in children. Not only does sports participation help reduce anxiety and depression, it has been shown to increase overall quality of life by improving self-esteem and self-efficacy. Future research should focus on combination therapy of medications and physical activity to treat mental illness.