Patterns of sports participation across the lifespan and their links to psychopathology, resilience, and childhood trauma: a cross-sectional approach

Participation in sports varies considerably among individuals, with many changing their chosen sports over time. This raises critical questions regarding which types of sports, and at what life stage, contribute most to mental health. To address this, we used latent class analysis to identify unobserved classes of individuals based on their sports participation across the lifespan and to explore how these classes differ in resilience, psychopathological symptoms, and overall childhood trauma. Additionally, we investigated whether the effect of sports class membership on psychopathological symptoms and resilience varies across different levels of childhood trauma. Analyses accounted for sociodemographics. The sample included 749 community individuals (69.6% females) aged 18–82. Five distinct classes emerged: individual sports, team sports, individual sports up to 18 years of age, mixed sports, and no sports. The classes differed in mean levels of childhood trauma, resilience, and psychopathological symptoms related to agoraphobia, anxiety, somatic complaints, social phobia, and (lack of) vitality, but showed no differences in symptoms related to aggression, depression, cognitive complaints, and work dysfunction. Overall, the no sports class exhibited the lowest resilience and the most severe psychopathological symptoms. Continued participation in team sports, alone or combined with individual sports, particularly during adolescence, appeared more beneficial than participation in just individual sports. While childhood trauma did not moderate outcomes, individuals with greater trauma exposure were more likely to avoid sports, particularly team sports, or to stop playing sports entirely in adulthood. Our findings highlight the potential negative impact of sports inactivity on mental health.