Sports coaches’ perception of health promotion: an exploratory study regarding philosophies, actions, barriers, and strategies

As front-line players in sports clubs, coaches can create a positive context influencing athletes' health decisions and behaviours. However, coaches rarely engage in health promotion (HP) practices due to various obstacles. Coaching philosophy, encompassing beliefs, principles, and values, significantly influences coaches' practices. However, its impact on HP remains unexplored, are the main factor influencing coaches' practices, has not yet been studied in regard to HP. The aim of this study was to explore coaches' perceptions of what they define as health in relation to their coaching philosophies, actions and strategies they undertake in relation to HP, as well as alignment or discrepancies between these three elements. An exploratory mixed-method survey design (QUAL=>quan) was used in this study. A sample of 299 sports coaches in Europe completed an online survey, including closed ended questions on their influence on sports participants health behaviours, barriers for HP and open-ended questions on coaching philosophies and associated health benefits, keywords linked to health, and strategies for HP. Qualitative and quantitative data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis and multivariate statistics respectively. While coaches define health mainly through keywords related to physical health (e.g. 'hydration', 'recovery'), their perceived coaching philosophies were focused around nine themes, related to social and mental health, predominantly using participant management and communication as implementation strategies. Furthermore, they identified lack of time, knowledge and human resources as the main barriers to pay attention to HP. The present findings highlight a gap between how coaches define health, what they consider they can influence and how they promote health. Further work is needed to explore the paradox between coaches' definition of health and self-reported actions focusing mostly on social and mental health mostly.