Effects of sports intervention on aggression in children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Objective To explore the impact of sports on aggression in children and adolescents and analyze whether different conditions in the intervention, such as type of sports, or intervention duration, have different influences on the effect of interventions. Method The study protocol was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42022361024). We performed a systematic search of Pubmed, Web of Science, Cochrane library, Embase and Scopus databases from database inception to 12 October 2022 for all studies written in English. Studies were included if they met the following PICO criteria. All analyses were carried out using the Review Manager 5.3 Software. We summarized aggression, hostility and anger scores using SMDs. Summary estimates with 95% confidence intervals were pooled using DerSimonian-Laird random effects model or fixed effects model according to between-study heterogeneity. Results A total of 15 studies were deemed eligible for inclusion in this review. The overall mean effect size indicated that sport interventions was associated with lower aggression (SMD = −0.37, 95% CI [−0.69 to −0.06], P = 0.020; I2 = 88%). Subgroup analyses showed that non-contact sports were associated with lower aggression (SMD = −0.65, 95% CI [−1.17 to −0.13], P = 0.020; I2 = 92%) but high-contact sports were not (SMD = −0.15, 95% CI [−0.55 to 0.25], P = 0.470; I2 = 79%). In addition, when intervention duration <6 months, sport interventions was associated with lower aggression (SMD = −0.99, 95% CI [−1.73 to −0.26], P = 0.008; I2 = 90%) and when intervention duration ≥ 6 months, sport interventions was not associated with lower aggression (SMD = −0.08, 95% CI [−0.44 to −0.28], P = 0.660; I2 = 87%). Conclusion This review confirmed that sports intervention can reduce the aggression of children and adolescents. We suggested that schools can organize young people to participate in low-level, non-contact sports to reduce the occurrence of bullying, violence and other aggression-related adverse events. Additional studies are needed to determine which other variables are associated with aggression in children and adolescents, in order to develop a more detailed and comprehensive intervention programme to reduce their aggression.

Relationship between Bullying and the Type of Physical Activity Practised by Spanish Pre- and Adolescents

“…This contrasts with the efficacy of sport-physical interventions in reducing aggressiveness [25,[39][40][41] and bullying [17], including through combat sports such as judo [36] or martial arts [42], which, according to the data from our study, have been the groups with the worst results.…”

“…Likewise, it seems that the type of physical activity does have an influence on victimisation [18]. For example, participants in more physical contact sports activities show more aggressive behavioural tendencies than those who participate in non-contact or low-contact sports, recommending such activities, with a low level of participation, for bullying interventions [25]. Other authors highlight non-competitive physical activity as having the most positive results regarding a lower risk of developing aggressive behaviour [18], or that cooperative sports favour the reduction in bullying [22].…”

Violent Behaviour and Emotional Intelligence in Physical Education: The Effects of an Intervention Programme

“…When it comes to violent behaviour, it has been observed that verbal behaviour is the most common in the adolescent population [19]. Studies claim that once verbal aggressive behaviours have been carried out, the next to take place are those involving physical contact [20]. These results suggest that Judo is an effective sport for reducing any type of aggressive behaviour [7,21].…”