RESEARCH ARTICLE
Evaluation of the Coping Through Football Project: Physical Activity and Psychosocial Outcomes
Bettina Friedrich1, *, Oliver John Mason1, 2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2017Volume: 10
First Page: 276
Last Page: 282
Publisher ID: TOPHJ-10-276
DOI: 10.2174/1874944501710010276
Article History:
Received Date: 29/08/2017Revision Received Date: 28/11/2017
Acceptance Date: 01/12/2017
Electronic publication date: 22/12/2017
Collection year: 2017
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Football is increasingly used as an adjunct intervention for people with mental problems, intended to improve their mental, physical and social health.
Objective:
The aim of this study is to evaluate psychosocial outcomes and physical activity in participants of “Coping Through Football” (CTF), a London-based football intervention for people who receive secondary mental health care.
Methods:
In a one group pre-post study design, participants completed self-report measures on physical activity and mental well-being at baseline (i.e. when joining the intervention), and at 6 months and 12 months thereafter. Perceived quality of life was measured using the WHOQOL-BREF which assess domains such as physical health, psychological well-being, social relationships and environment. The Rosenberg Self-esteem scale was used to measure self-esteem in the participants. Self-reported physical activity (vigorous activity, moderate activity, walking and sitting) was assessed using the short form of the International Physical Activity questionnaire (IPAQ).
Results:
For the 6 months follow up, data was available for 72 participants; at 12 month follow up data was available for 32 participants. Levels of vigorous activity doubled between baseline (102.98 min/week) and the short term follow up (196.85 min/week) as well as between baseline (117.26 min/week) and the one year follow up (248.23 min/week). For moderate activity, we find similar results with an improvement from 78.13 min/week at baseline to 149 min/week at the short term follow up and an increase from 87.74 min/week at baseline to 209.61 min/week. Increases on psychosocial measures were more modest, reaching significance at only the 6 month time point. There were no statistically significant changes with regard to the time spent sitting or walking at either the 6 or the 12 month follow up.
Conclusion:
While the impact on psychosocial measures was only moderate, the increase in physical activity in participants encourages the use of adjunct football interventions for people with mental health problems as a means to increase physical activity levels.