Does Coaching Harassment in Extracurricular Sports Activities Explain Mental Health Problems?

In the context of Japanese sports, coaching harassment is a critical social problem.This study aimed to examine the explaining effect of the experience of coaching harassment victimization on mental health problems and the moderating effect of domain-general perceived apathy in junior high and high school extracurricular sports activities.Data obtained from 229 college students (M=19.15,SD=0.94), who participated in extracurricular sports activities, via an online cross-sectional survey were analyzed.Rank correlation analysis revealed that an experience of coaching harassment victimization had weak positive correlations with depression, anxiety, stress, and procrastinatory apathy.Results of a multiple regression analysis with robust standard errors, which included interactions, revealed an interaction between experience of coaching harassment victimization and unwillingness apathy in a model with anxiety and stress as dependent variables.Results of a simple slope analysis revealed a positive explanation between coaching harassment victimization experience and anxiety and stress in the group with high levels of unwillingness apathy.These results provided insight into a unique aspect that the victims who experienced daily apathy exhibited negative mental health conditions.This finding has implications for the future of victim support regarding sports violence.