Aims:The aim and objective of the study was building on a previous call for the development of sport-based life skills interventions for young people with first episode of psychosis (FEP) (Brooke, Lin, Ntoumanis, & Gucciardi, 2018), to explore the barriers and enablers to sport participation for young people with FEP.
Method:We used a semi-structured interview format to conduct one-to-one interviews with young people (aged 16-25; n = 10) with FEP, and one-to-one interviews and focus groups with their clinicians (n = 33). Questions focused on barriers and facilitators (intrapersonal, interpersonal, psychological, environment, health/safety, logistical) to sport participation young people with FEP. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Results: Four themes (and 11 sub-themes) emerged from the analysis: (a) the need for sport in FEP recovery (perceived benefits; resource gap); (b) barriers (logistical; psychological); (c) enablers (positive environmental expectations and experiences) and (d) programme design (sport programme/type; life skills training; application to barriers/enablers).
Conclusion:The participants responded favourably to the idea of using sport to promote recovery post-FEP, and provided an insight into why sport is currently underutilized within FEP recovery efforts. The barriers, enablers, and specific suggestions for how to limit the barriers and strengthen the enablers are valuable for sport-based intervention design, and may be applicable to non-sport-based interventions for people with FEP. K E Y W O R D S early intervention, first episode psychosis, functional recovery, life skills, sports
People differ in their implicit theories about mental toughness, that is, whether they believe this quality is immutable (entity theorists) or changeable (incremental theorists). The aim of this study was to explore whether peoples' implicit theories of mental toughness are related to cognitive, motivational, and behavioral variables considered as hallmarks of this personal quality. We conducted three studies with participants from different achievement contexts: 444 undergraduate students aged 17 to 26 years (M = 19.25); 395 employees aged 25 to 79 years (M = 48.78); and 230 adolescent athletes aged 11 to 17 years (M = 14.98). Students completed a measure of implicit theories of mental toughness, fear of failure, and perceived stress. Employees completed a measure of implicit theories and were rated on performance and creativity by their supervisor. Athletes completed a measure of implicit theories of mental toughness, resilience, and thriving. Across all three samples, cluster analyses supported the existence of an incremental theory (high incremental theory, low entity theory) alongside an ambivalent group (moderate scores on both theory theories). These clusters differed on fear of failure, stress, performance, creativity, resilience and thriving consistent with theoretical expectations. The current findings suggest that people's implicit theories of mental toughness may have important implications for understanding cognitive, motivational and behavioral correlates considered hallmarks of this psychological concept.
We suggest that sport-based interventions could be an opportunity to provide life skills training, social connectivity and physical activity opportunities in one intervention to individuals recovering from their first psychotic episode. We call for their development, and provide empirically-based recommendations for intervention design.
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