Quality of Life Determinants in Professional Athletes

BACKGROUND: The study attempted to answer the question of whether the type of practiced sport (individual, team) is a determinant of quality of life in athletes. The study was also intended to identify the best quality of life determinants in professional karate practitioners and team sports players from among such socio-cultural factors as age, gender, marital status, material situation, level of education, and types of health behaviors. METHODS: The study involved 110 Polish players of team sports and 90 martial arts practitioners. All competitors had high sporting achievements. A Paper-and-Pen Interview questionnaire was used as a standardized survey method. The Inventory of Health Behaviors was used to evaluate respondents’ health behaviors. The Comprehensive Quality of Life Scale was used to measure the quality of life in its objective and subjective components. RESULTS: Among the predictors of quality of life, only three proved to be statistically significant: proper dietary habits (β = 0.204), positive mental attitude (β = 0.283) and athletes’ gender (β = 0.191). It turns out that men are statistically more likely to achieve a higher quality of life than women. The type of practiced sport did not turn out to be a quality of life determinant. CONCLUSION: The type of practiced sport is not a significant quality of life predictor, perhaps because high-level sports activities are professional in nature, which makes the professional and sports activities uniform. The results of the study may suggest that the determinants of the quality of life of professional athletes are found in their personality rather than solely in their socio-cultural environment. Finally, studies of determinants of athletes’ quality of life can help develop optimal strategies for improving the quality of life in society in general; however, in-depth qualitative research also seems to be necessary to do it.