- Title
- Factors that are most influential in children's continued and discontinued participation in organised sport: the role of injury and injury risk perceptions
- Creator
- Siesmaa, Emma; Blitvich, Jennifer; Telford, Amanda; Finch, Caroline
- Date
- 2011
- Type
- Text; Book chapter
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/55379
- Identifier
- vital:5492
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781613246528
- Abstract
- Children‘s involvement in sport has increased over the past decade, with the health benefits associated with regular physical activity and, more specifically sports, now well established. Sport participation makes an important contribution to children‘s overall physical activity levels, and reduces the risks of childhood obesity and other associated childhood diseases. Although the benefits of sport participation are known and sport injury among children has become an international public health concern, it remains unclear how sport injury impacts on children‘s long-term sport involvement. This Chapter presents the detailed findings from a qualitative investigation of the key factors that influence children‘s continued sport participation, possible sport dropout and their sports choices, while exploring the potential impact that sport injury and injury risk perception has on children‘s organised sport behaviours. In this study a total of 43 children, aged 9-17 years, who were involved in an organised (after school) sport, took part in one of eight focus group discussions. Children were recruited from one of six sports (Australian football, badminton, golf, netball, soccer and swimming) and all participated at a community club or sub-elite level. Each focus group consisted of 5-6 children and each separate discussion was approximately 30-minutes duration. Focus groups were conducted until saturation of themes was obtained. Questions focused on children‘s sport participation, reasons for their continuation/discontinuation of sport and the encouragement/discouragement they received from parents. Other key factors that were discussed included injuries that children had sustained while participating and whether sport injury or child‘s perception of injury risk discouraged their participation and/or impacted on their parents‘ support of their participation. Overall, few children were concerned about the risk of injury while participating in sport. However, many children discussed not wanting to play contact sports such as Australian football, rugby or boxing, perceiving these sports as being too rough, and with an increased chance of injury. The main reasons the sport-active children reported for discontinuing their prior sport involvement were a lack of enjoyment and restrictions on their time. Children reported parents to be supportive of their participation in sport regardless of safety concerns. No instances of parents preventing child sport involvement were reported by children. The results from this study can be used to inform sporting bodies and health agencies of the sport injury and safety concerns held by children and how these impact on their choice of sporting activity, while highlighting areas that can be targeted in order to retain child participants.
- Publisher
- New York Nova Science Publishers
- Relation
- Sport participation: Health benefits, injuries and psychological effects p. 47-84
- Rights
- This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
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