IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i22p12075-d681246.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“Do Elite Sport First, Get Your Period Back Later.” Are Barriers to Communication Hindering Female Athletes?

Author

Listed:
  • Martina Höök

    (Swedish Winter Sports Research Centre, Department of Health Sciences, Mid Sweden University, 831 25 Östersund, Sweden
    Swedish Ski Association, 791 31 Falun, Sweden)

  • Max Bergström

    (Swedish Winter Sports Research Centre, Department of Health Sciences, Mid Sweden University, 831 25 Östersund, Sweden)

  • Stig Arve Sæther

    (Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU, Dragvoll, 7491 Trondheim, Norway)

  • Kerry McGawley

    (Swedish Winter Sports Research Centre, Department of Health Sciences, Mid Sweden University, 831 25 Östersund, Sweden)

Abstract

Competitive female athletes perceive their hormonal cycles to affect their training, competition performance and overall well-being. Despite this, athletes rarely discuss hormonal-cycle-related issues with others. The aim of this study was to gain an in-depth understanding of the perceptions and experiences of endurance athletes and their coaches in relation to barriers to athlete–coach communication about female hormonal cycles. Thirteen Swedish national-/international-level female cross-country skiers (age 25.8 ± 3.6 y) and eight of their coaches (two women and six men; age 47.8 ± 7.5 y) completed an online survey relating to their educational background, prior knowledge about female hormonal cycles and a coach–athlete relationship questionnaire (CART-Q). They then participated in an online education session about female hormonal cycles and athletic performance before participating in semi-structured focus-group interviews. Thematic analyses revealed three main barriers to communication: knowledge, interpersonal, and structural. In addition, the results suggested that a good coach–athlete relationship may facilitate open communication about female hormonal cycles, while low levels of knowledge may hinder communication. To overcome the perceived barriers to communication, a model is proposed to improve knowledge, develop interpersonal relationships and strengthen structural systems through educational exchanges and forums for open discussion.

Suggested Citation

  • Martina Höök & Max Bergström & Stig Arve Sæther & Kerry McGawley, 2021. "“Do Elite Sport First, Get Your Period Back Later.” Are Barriers to Communication Hindering Female Athletes?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(22), pages 1-17, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:22:p:12075-:d:681246
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/22/12075/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/22/12075/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Philip von Rosen & Linda Ekenros & Guro Strøm Solli & Øyvind Sandbakk & Hans-Christer Holmberg & Angelica Lindén Hirschberg & Cecilia Fridén, 2022. "Offered Support and Knowledge about the Menstrual Cycle in the Athletic Community: A Cross-Sectional Study of 1086 Female Athletes," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-10, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:22:p:12075-:d:681246. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.