Longitudinal insights into youth psychological adaptation: when does organized sport participation matter to buffer against child maltreatment?

Considering the high prevalence of child maltreatment worldwide and its harmful consequences, it is essential to identify ways to promote resilience in victims. This two-wave longitudinal study investigated the potential role of sport participation in an organized context, an understudied factor, in sustaining positive psychological adaptation. Using electronic tablets in their classrooms, a total of 1,836 adolescents, aged between 14 and 18 years at wave 1 (T1: M = 14.74; SD = 0.84), completed self-reported questionnaires assessing history of child maltreatment, sport participation (i.e., structured, coach-led activities), violence within sport contexts among sport participants, and psychological adaptation (life satisfaction, internalized symptoms). At T1, 67.5% of the sample reported having experienced at least one form of child maltreatment and 54.4% were involved in organized sport. Path analysis revealed that child maltreatment at T1 was significantly associated with lower life satisfaction and higher internalized symptoms at T1, and with changes in internalized symptoms a year later at T2. The association between organized sport participation at T1 and changes in life satisfaction from T1 to T2 was conditional to the experience of child maltreatment, but not changes in internalized symptoms from T1 to T2, after accounting non-organized sport participation and violence in the context of sport – the latter being reported by more than half of sport participants and independently associated with poorer psychological outcomes. These results did not differ significantly between boys and girls. Overall, these findings suggest that organized sport participation may be associated with more favorable psychological adaptation among adolescents exposed to child maltreatment under specific conditions. Importantly, these associations were observed after accounting for exposure to violence within the sport context, underscoring the heterogeneous nature of sport environments.