Psychological Strain and Suicidal Ideation in Athletes: The Multiple Mediating Effects of Hopelessness and Depression

Guoxiao Sun, Jingyi Zhao, Siyu Tian, Liwei Zhang and Cunxian Jia
Additional contact information
Guoxiao Sun: School of Physical Education, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China
Jingyi Zhao: School of Physical Education, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China
Siyu Tian: School of Physical Education, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China
Liwei Zhang: School of Psychology, Beijing Sport University, Beijing 100084, China
Cunxian Jia: Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan 250012, China

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 21, 1-14

Abstract: The present study aims to examine the relationship between psychological strain, suicidal ideation, hopelessness, and depression among Chinese athletes. Participants were 774 Chinese athletes (454 men and 320 women), with a range of ages from 12 to 35 ( M = 18.47, SD = 3.39). The structural equation modeling method was used to examine the multiple mediating effects of hopelessness and depression between psychological strain and suicidal ideation. As expected, a positive correlation between psychological strain, suicidal ideation, hopelessness, and depression was found. Additionally, results seem to indicate that psychological strain directly and positively influenced suicidal ideation, and that hopelessness and depression played a serial mediating role in the relationship between psychological strain and suicidal ideation. To conclude, the psychological strain theory is applicable for explaining suicidal ideation in athletes. In athletes, psychological strain is sequentially associated first with a sense of hopelessness and then depression, which is in turn related to suicidal ideation. The present study makes a significant contribution to the literature because we provide a new theoretical basis and new methods for preventing mental disorder and suicidality in athletes.

Keywords: mental health; athletes; suicidal ideation; psychological strain; hopelessness; depression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/21/8087/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/21/8087/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:21:p:8087-:d:439109

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().