Team and individual sport participation, school belonging, and gender differences in adolescent depression

In light of the growing concern for the mental well-being of adolescents, this study sought to investigate the impact of team and individual sports participation within the school setting on depressive symptoms and explore the mediating role of school belonging in the relationships between team and individual sports and depressive symptoms among adolescents. We also examined gender differences in the effects of the types of sports (i.e., team and individual sports) participation on depression. A series of full structural equation models were tested with data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). Results suggest that joint team and individual sports participation had an indirect effect on reducing adolescents’ depressive symptoms through their sense of school belonging. Team sport participation was found to predict lower levels of depression both directly and indirectly through school belonging. When including all the gender variables and their interaction terms in the moderated mediation model, male students who played team sports had significantly lower scores of depression through school belonging, compared to students who played no-sports. Female students participating in individual sports reported lower levels of depression while male students participating in individual sports showed higher depression scores than males who did not participate in sports. Our findings provide important insights concerning the key role of team sport participation and school belonging in reducing the risk of depression and the types of sports and their separate effects on depression symptoms in male and female adolescents.