Athletic Performance, Sport Anxiety
Conditions
Keywords
adolescent athletes, football; soccer, life skills, cognitive anxiety, sport anxiety, athletic performance, psychological skills, youth sport, China
Brief summary
This randomized behavioral study will evaluate whether an eight-week life skills training program will reduce cognitive sport anxiety and improve football performance in non-elite adolescent football players in China. A total of 160 players aged 14 to 17 years from 16 teams will be allocated individually within team-by-gender strata to either a life skills training group or a usual-training control group. The intervention will include 16 small-group sessions delivered twice per week for 45-60 minutes. Assessments will be conducted at baseline, immediately after the eight-week intervention, and four weeks later. The primary psychological outcome will be cognitive anxiety derived from the Worry and Concentration Disruption subscales of the Sport Anxiety Scale-2. The primary performance outcome will be a baseline-referenced Football Performance Index derived from passing accuracy, shooting accuracy, dribbling time, and agility time. The study hypothesis is that life skills training will reduce cognitive anxiety and improve football performance, and that greater reduction in cognitive anxiety immediately after the intervention will be associated with better football performance at follow-up.
Detailed description
The study will use a two-arm parallel longitudinal randomized design with three assessment points: T0 at baseline, T1 immediately after completion of an eight-week intervention, and T2 four weeks after T1. Participants will be 160 non-elite football players aged 14-17 years from 16 teams. Individual randomization will be conducted within team-by-gender strata using a computer-generated random sequence, targeting 80 participants per condition. The life skills intervention will consist of 16 sessions delivered over eight weeks (two sessions per week; 45-60 minutes per session; approximately 8-10 players per small group). Content will include goal setting, self-management, emotional regulation, problem solving, decision making, communication, teamwork, time management, coping with mistakes, and transfer of skills beyond sport. Control participants will continue usual football training without the structured life skills program during the study period. Attendance, possible control contamination, and concurrent psychological training will be recorded. Cognitive sport anxiety will be assessed using the 15-item Sport Anxiety Scale-2. Worry will comprise items 3, 5, 8, 9, and 11; Concentration Disruption will comprise items 1, 4, 7, 13, and 15; Somatic Anxiety will comprise items 2, 6, 10, 12, and 14. Cognitive Anxiety will be defined as Worry plus Concentration Disruption. Football performance will be assessed using passing accuracy, shooting accuracy, dribbling time, and agility time. These components will be standardized using fixed baseline reference parameters, with time-based measures reverse-directed, and combined into a T-score Football Performance Index in which higher values indicate better performance. Primary intervention effects will be evaluated with linear mixed-effects models using condition, time, and condition-by-time fixed effects, while accounting for repeated observations within participants and clustering within teams. Secondary outcome contrasts will be adjusted using the Holm procedure. The longitudinal indirect pathway will be evaluated as intervention allocation → T1 cognitive anxiety reduction → T2 football performance. The indirect effect will be estimated with 5,000 team-cluster bootstrap resamples. Sensitivity analyses will include per-protocol attendance, control contamination, concurrent psychological training, complete T2 cases, multiple imputation with 20 imputed datasets, and alternative FPI scoring.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALLife Skills Training Program
An eight-week behavioral life skills program delivered in 16 small-group sessions (2 sessions/week; 45-60 minutes/session; approximately 8-10 players/group). The program will include goal setting, self-management, emotional regulation, problem solving, decision making, communication, teamwork, time management, coping with mistakes, and transfer of skills beyond sport. Attendance will be recorded. Per-protocol adherence will be defined as attendance at ≥80% of sessions (at least 13 of 16 sessions).
Sponsors
Islamic Azad University, Sanandaj
Islamic Azad University of Mashhad
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
OTHER
Masking
NONE
Masking description
Open-label behavioral intervention. Participants and intervention providers will know group assignment. Outcome-assessor masking will be reported only if it is actually implemented.
Intervention model description
Two-arm parallel study with 1:1 individual randomization within team-by-gender strata. Participants will be assessed at baseline, immediately after the 8-week intervention, and at a 4-week post-intervention follow-up.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
14 Years to 17 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* Age 14 to 17 years at enrollment. * Current membership in a non-elite/non-professional football team. * At least one year of prior football participation. * Regular participation in team football training. * Ability and willingness to attend study assessments and, if allocated to the intervention, the life skills training sessions. * Written informed consent from a parent or legal guardian and age-appropriate assent from the adolescent participant before study participation.
Exclusion criteria
* Current membership in a national football team. * Current professional football contract. * Current membership in a first-tier professional football academy. * Any medical, musculoskeletal, or psychological condition that, in the judgment of the study team, would make participation in football-performance testing or the behavioral intervention unsafe or inappropriate. * Inability to complete baseline assessment or comply with essential study procedures.
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Change in Cognitive Anxiety Score | Baseline (T0), immediately post-intervention at 8 weeks (T1), and 4-week post-intervention follow-up (T2; approximately 12 weeks after baseline) | Cognitive Anxiety will be calculated as the sum of the Worry and Concentration Disruption subscales of the 15-item Sport Anxiety Scale-2. Each subscale contains five items scored from 1 to 4; therefore the Cognitive Anxiety composite will range from 10 to 40, with lower scores indicating less cognitive sport anxiety. The primary analysis will evaluate differential change between groups over time. |
| Change in Baseline-Referenced Football Performance Index | Baseline (T0), immediately post-intervention at 8 weeks (T1), and 4-week post-intervention follow-up (T2; approximately 12 weeks after baseline) | The Football Performance Index will combine passing accuracy, shooting accuracy, dribbling time, and agility time. Each component will be standardized using fixed baseline reference parameters; dribbling and agility time will be reverse-directed so higher standardized values represent better performance. The composite will be transformed to a T-score metric, with higher scores indicating better football performance. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Worry Subscale Score | Time frame: T0, T1 at 8 weeks, T2 at approximately 12 weeks. | 5-item SAS-2 Worry subscale; range 5-20; lower scores indicate less worry. |
| Concentration Disruption Subscale Score | Time frame: T0, T1 at 8 weeks, T2 at approximately 12 weeks. | 5-item SAS-2 Concentration Disruption subscale; range 5-20; lower scores indicate less concentration disruption. |
| Somatic Anxiety Subscale Score | Time frame: T0, T1 at 8 weeks, T2 at approximately 12 weeks. | 5-item SAS-2 Somatic Anxiety subscale; range 5-20; lower scores indicate less somatic anxiety. |
| Passing Accuracy | ime frame: T0, T1 at 8 weeks, T2 at approximately 12 weeks. | Football-specific passing accuracy performance measure; higher values indicate better performance. |
Contacts
CONTACTYang Qin, Assistant Professor
CONTACTJiarui Xing, assistant professor
Outcome results
None listed