A279: The Relationship Between Adolescent Sports Participation and Quality of Life

The study focuses on how sports participation reduces interpersonal sensitivity through enhancing social skills and promoting peer interaction, which in turn affects the quality of life of adolescents. At the same time, a gender perspective is introduced to analyze the heterogeneity of different gender groups in terms of sports participation, interpersonal sensitivity, and quality of life, and to reveal the moderating role of gender factors in the pathway of “sports participation - interpersonal relationship sensitivity - quality of life”. This will provide empirical evidence for education departments to develop differentiated exercise intervention programs and for mental health organizations to design targeted counseling strategies. A random sample of 9504 high school students from 16 prefecture-level cities in Shandong Province was selected and surveyed using the School Social Behavioral Scale (SSBS), the Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90), the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Adolescents (PAQ-A), and the Scale for Children and Adolescents (QLSCA). A moderated mediated effects model was constructed. Girls scored higher than boys in interpersonal sensitivity (t=-4.19), and boys scored higher than girls in quality of life (t=4.97) and sports participation (t=19.10) (all p-values < 0.01). Sports participation was positively correlated with quality of life (r=0.287) and negatively correlated with interpersonal sensitivity (r=-0.127); interpersonal sensitivity was negatively correlated with quality of life (r=-0.546) (all p-values < 0.01). Interpersonal sensitivity exerted a mediating effect between sports participation and quality of life (mediating effect value of 0.034,95% CI=0.043 to 0.068). Gender played a moderating role in the sports participation and quality of life pathways (β=0.033, P < 0.01). Interpersonal sensitivity plays a mediating role between adolescent sports participation and quality of life, and sports participation can improve adolescents' quality of life levels by decreasing their interpersonal sensitivity and thus improving their quality of life. Gender moderated the relationship between sports participation and quality of life, and sports participation was more strongly associated with quality of life in girls. The study suggests that schools and families should pay attention to the quality of life of adolescents, strengthen the monitoring and assessment of mental health, and especially formulate intervention strategies based on gender differences, create a favorable environment for the comprehensive development of adolescents through the collaborative mechanism of home and school.