Positive mental health among sports coaches: A six-month longitudinal study

Positive mental health is important for sports coaches to keep functioning well over time, but little is known about its longitudinal stability. Consequently, this study examined stability and change of emotional, psychological, and social well-being in a sample of 422 sports coaches (Mage = 44.48, SD = 11.03) in terms of measurement invariance, rank-order stability, mean-level change, stability of interindividual differences, and structural stability. Participants completed measures of emotional, psychological, and social well-being at baseline and again at three and six months. Multiple perspectives of stability and change were examined using structural equation modeling. The results confirm that the measure of positive mental health functions equivalently over time. Stability of well-being remained high, with rank-order stability coefficients ranging from .67 to .79 at three and six months, and no mean-level change in well-being was observed. The results also indicate stable interindividual differences and structural stability of positive mental health over time. These results confirm the importance of addressing any symptoms of diminished positive mental health in the coaching population.

Methods
This longitudinal study comprises three measurement waves. Sports coaches were recruited in Switzerland through the National Professional Association of Coaches, the National Coach Education, and the National Department for Youth and Adult Sport. Data collection was completed in February 2019 and n=422, n=301, and n=259 coaches participated at baseline, month 6 and month 12, respectively. 

Participants completed online questionnaires at baseline (T1) and at three and six months (T2 and T3, respectively), answering the same set of questions at each time point. Demographic items (age, gender, sport, level) were recorded only at T1.

We used longitudinal structural equation modeling to examine PMH over time. Specifically, we tested the measurement invariance of the MHC-SF's three-factor model for ordered categorical items over time before performing direct statistical comparisons of factor means, variances, and covariances among the constructs.