The present study compared the effects of two contact methods on sport psychology service use. The sample consisted of a total of 163 athletes on 14 teams. After a workshop, teams were randomly assigned to contact the sport psychology consultant (SPC) by traditional methods or by electronic methods. There were greater contacts and assessments completed in the electronic group compared to the traditional group one month after the workshop. The results suggest that athletes prefer using E-mail and web pages over phone and in-person meetings when initially contacting a SPC and gathering sport psychology information. Overall results suggest that electronic contact methods are at least equal, and in several cases superior, to traditional contact methods regarding generating requests for service from athletes on a short-term basis.
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Samuel J. Zizzi and Frank M. Perna
Leonard D. Zaichkowsky and Frank M. Perna
The purpose of this paper is to respond to the arguments against certification in sport psychology presented by Anshel (1992). Anshel’s central arguments were (a) certification will diminish rather than promote the field of sport psychology, (b) Association for the Advancement of Applied Sport Psychology (AAASP) certification favors professionals trained in psychology, and (c) AAASP certification is inappropriately reliant on clinical psychology as a model for the practice of sport psychology. These criticisms of certification are rebutted by clearly defining certification and related terms, professing an adequate scientific knowledge base in sport psychology to support practice, identifying fraudulent practice as unrelated to certification, clarifying procedures used in developing AAASP certification criteria, and presenting evidence that sport psychology professionals trained in the sport sciences are not less favored for AAASP certification and that clinical psychology is not used as the model for practice in sport psychology.
Renee Newcomer Appaneal, Frank M. Perna, and Kevin T. Larkin
Features of posttraumatic distress have been associated with treatment noncompliance and delayed surgical recovery among general medical and trauma populations. Although cognitive-affective and behavioral features of posttraumatic distress have been demonstrated among adult and adolescent athletes with injuries, physiological responses associated with posttraumatic distress have not yet been examined in this population. The objective of this study was to examine psychophysiological stress reactivity to orthopedic trauma among male athletes who sustained a severe sport injury. Athletes with injuries (n= 7) and non-injured athlete controls (n= 5) completed self-report measures of psychological distress and were then shown injury video footage while heart rate and skin conductance measures were recorded. After exposure to orthopedic trauma-related video footage, athletes with injuries demonstrated significantly greater skin conductance reactivity and subjective distress compared to controls. As demonstrated among other medical and trauma populations, athletes with injuries exhibit exaggerated stress reactivity profiles when primed with orthopedic trauma stimuli.
Frank M. Perna, Rebecca L. Ahlgren, and Leonard Zaichkowsky
Collegiate male athletes and nonathletes’ (N = 76) level of life satisfaction was assessed at termination of their collegiate careers, and further analyses indicated the degree of association between athletic injury history and life satisfaction after accounting for demographic and career-planning variables. While no significant Group or Group by Race interaction effects were found, life satisfaction was significantly lower among African American students. Regression analysis, controlling for demographic variables, further indicated that athletes who had sustained a severe athletic injury were no less satisfied with life than noninjured and moderately injured athletes. However, athletes who could state a postcollegiate occupational plan were significantly more satisfied with life than those who were unable to indicate such a goal. Results suggest that the role of athletic participation and athletic injury with respect to life satisfaction may have been overemphasized. The potential role of career planning in understanding termination from collegiate sport is discussed.
Allison Ottenbacher, Mandi Yu, Richard P. Moser, Siobhan M. Phillips, Catherine Alfano, and Frank M. Perna
Background:
Evidence is building that strength training may reduce complications associated with cancer such as fatigue, muscle wasting, and lymphedema, particularly among breast and prostate cancer survivors. Population estimates are available for rates of aerobic physical activity; however, data on strength training in this population are limited. The objective of this study was to identify rates of meeting public health recommendations for strength training and aerobic activity among cancer survivors and individuals with no cancer history.
Methods:
Data from the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS), Iteration 4 Cycle 1 and Cycle 2 were combined to conduct the analyses. Missing data were imputed, and weighted statistical analyses were conducted in SAS.
Results:
The proportion of individuals meeting both strength training and aerobic guidelines were low for both cancer survivors and those without a history of cancer. The odds of meeting strength training guidelines were significantly lower for women with a history of any cancer except breast, compared with women with no history of cancer (OR: 0.70, 95% CI: 0.51−0.96).
Conclusions:
More work needs to be done to understand why women with cancers other than breast, may be less inclined to engage in aerobic physical activity and strength training.
Lynette L. Craft, Frank M. Perna, Karen M. Freund, and Larry Culpepper
Background:
Exercise effectively reduces symptoms of depression. However, correlates of regular exercise in depressed women are unknown. This study assessed psychosocial determinants of exercise in a sample of women with depressive symptoms.
Methods:
Sixty-one women completed demographic, depression, and exercise-related questionnaires.
Results:
The average Primary Health Ques-tionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) depression score was 12.1 (SD = 5.0), indicating moderate depressive symptoms. In the previous week, the women reported 12.8 metabolic equivalents (METs) of exercise. Low levels of self-efficacy and social support for exercise were also reported. Depressive symptoms were positively associated with barriers to exercise (r = .35, P < .01), and barriers were inversely related to exercise METs (r = –.37, P < .05). Barriers to activity and education level were significant determinants of exercise.
Conclusions:
Women with depressive symptoms report minimal exercise involvement, numerous barriers to exercise, and low exercise self-efficacy and social support for exercise.
April Y. Oh, Erin Hennessy, Kate E. McSpadden, and Frank M. Perna
Purpose:
This study examines the relationship between state laws for physical education and neighborhood amenities for physical activity on weight status in adolescents of low socioeconomic status.
Methods:
Data from 2 national data sources: Classification of Laws Associated with School Students (CLASS) and the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) were combined and analyzed.
Results:
Multinomial regression models found that adolescents in states with strong PE law were associated with a lower odds of being obese [OR = 0.63 (0.41, 0.97)]; however, when PE law and neighborhood amenities were included, only neighborhood amenities were associated with lower odds of obesity, but also greater odds of overweight status.
Conclusion:
This study emphasizes the potential significance of state laws on low SES groups to combat obesity; as well as the potential differential effects of local level factors, and alignment with policy goals for healthy weight.
Scott R. Johnson, Andrew C. Ostrow, Frank M. Perna, and Edward F. Etzel
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of group and individual goal setting versus a control condition on bowling performance (BP), personal goals (PG), and perceived goal difficulty (PGD) across five weeks. Novice bowlers (N = 36) were randomly assigned to one of the three goal conditions. Three separate 3 × 5 (Goal Condition × Time: Weeks of Study) repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed significant main effects for time on BP and PGD, and significant group by time interaction effects on BP and PG. The significant group × time interaction effects revealed that participants in the group goal setting condition increased both BP and PG relatively more than participants in the other goal setting conditions. Therefore, group goal setting may enhance performance in an individual sport by potentially increasing personal goal setting under difficult performance demands.
Sarah Kozey Keadle, Shirley Bluethmann, Charles E. Matthews, Barry I. Graubard, and Frank M. Perna
Background:
This paper tested whether a physical activity index (PAI) that integrates PA-related behaviors (ie, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity [MVPA] and TV viewing) and performance measures (ie, cardiorespiratory fitness and muscle strength) improves prediction of health status.
Methods:
Participants were a nationally representative sample of US adults from 2011 to 2012 NHANES. Dependent variables (self-reported health status, multimorbidity, functional limitations, and metabolic syndrome) were dichotomized. Wald-F tests tested whether the model with all PAI components had statistically significantly higher area under the curve (AUC) values than the models with behavior or performance scores alone, adjusting for covariates and complex survey design.
Results:
The AUC (95% CI) for PAI in relation to health status was 0.72 (0.68, 0.76), and PAI-AUC for multimorbidity was 0.72 (0.69, 0.75), which were significantly higher than the behavior or performance scores alone. For functional limitations, the PAI AUC was 0.71 (0.67, 0.74), significantly higher than performance, but not behavior scores, while the PAI AUC for metabolic syndrome was 0.69 (0.66, 0.73), higher than behavior but not performance scores.
Conclusions:
These results provide empirical support that an integrated PAI may improve prediction of health and disease. Future research should examine the clinical utility of a PAI and verify these findings in prospective studies.
Renee Newcomer Appaneal, Beverly Rockhill Levine, Frank M. Perna, and Joni L. Roh
Depression is common among athletes following sport injury, yet few studies have explored the severity of postinjury depression. Among those studies, only one examined gender differences although women in the general population are more likely than men to experience depression. No research to date has used interviews to assess depression despite their standard use among mental health professionals. In a quasi-experimental design, we used a self-report checklist and a clinical interview to compare depression among male and female athletes at 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months postinjury. Results revealed significant effects of group (injured vs. control) and time (since injury), and these effects were different for the two depression measures. We also explored the sensitivity and specificity of the user-rated checklist in identifying severely depressed athletes compared with the interview. Findings underscore the importance of multimodal approaches and clinical judgment when evaluating athletes' postinjury depression symptoms.
