Does athletic involvement improve health-related quality of life in adolescents compared to nonathletes?
Athletic involvement is associated with better mental, emotional, and physical well-being in adolescents, suggesting they may require distinct normative values for HRQoL instruments.
Athletes reported higher scores on a number of SF-36 and PODCI subscales related to mental, emotional, and physical well-being than nonathletes. Our findings suggest that athletic involvement may be a benefit to the overall health status of adolescents and imply that athletes may be a distinct adolescent group requiring their own normative values when using the SF-36 and PODCI.
Valier et al. (Sun,) studied this question.