Although it is advocated that end-users are engaged in developing evidence-based injury prevention training to enhance the implementation, this rarely happens. The € Implementing injury Prevention training ROutines in TEams and Clubs in youth Team handball (I-PROTECT)' uses an ecological participatory design incorporating the perspectives of multiple stakeholders throughout the project. Within the I-PROTECT project, the current study aimed to describe the development of holistic injury prevention training specifically for youth handball players through using knowledge from both end-users (coaches and players) and researchers/handball experts. Employing action evaluation within participatory action research, the cyclical development process included three phases: research team preparation, handball expert-based preparation and end-user evaluation to develop injury prevention training incorporating both physical and psychological perspectives. To grow the knowledge of the interdisciplinary research team, rethinking was conducted within and between phases based on participants' contributions. Researchers and end-users cocreated examples of handball-specific exercises, including injury prevention physical principles (movement technique for upper and lower extremities, respectively, and muscle strength) combined with psychological aspects (increase end-user motivation, task focus and body awareness) to integrate into warm-up and skills training within handball practice. A cyclical development process that engaged researchers/handball experts and end-users to cocreate evidence-based, theory-informed and context-specific injury prevention training specifically for youth handball players generated a first pilot version of exercises including physical principles combined with psychological aspects to be integrated within handball practice. © 2022 BMJ Publishing Group. All rights reserved. © 2022 BMJ Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

This PhD Project with a specialization in sport psychology is inspired by the cultural praxis of athletes’ careers paradigm. This implies that the Project blends theory, research, and practice within the context of Swedish handball, by investigating career pathways of professional players providing empirically based, and context specific, implications. The overarching aim of the Project is twofold: (a) to examine the career experiences of Swedish professional handball players and consolidate them into the empirical career model of Swedish professional handball players (ECM-H), and (b) based on the ECM-H, to develop, validate, and test an applied framework promoting career-long psychological support services in Swedish handball (CPS-H). The first aim is covered by Study I and II, and the second aim is met in Study III and IV. The dissertation is designed as a collection of four articles with one article per study. Study I focused on a qualitative exploration of career experiences from 18 Swedish professional handball players including major career stages and transitions in their athletic and non-athletic development. The players’ accounts were consolidated into the ECM-H describing the context-specific features and pathways throughout the handball career. When developing the ECM-H, gender-specific issues appeared of interest for further investigation. Gender issues were addressed in Study II by re-analyzing the data from Study I. Two composite vignettes were created describing the career pathways of nine male and nine female players. Study III initiated a move from research to practice. Based on the ECM-H, applied sport psychology literature and experiences of the research team led by the first author, the applied framework CPS-H was heuristically developed and validated in three focus groups with end users; professional players, coaches, and sport psychology practitioners. The validated version of the CPS-H is presented with general and career stage-specific recommendations for its implementation among support providers (i.e., where, when, what, who, why, and how of psychological support service). Study IV was designed as an instrumental case study for testing a part of the CPS-H framework. More specifically, the mastery career stage. A career assistance program (CAP) named Life as a professional handball player was developed for, implemented with, and evaluated by Swedish League team. The program included eight workshops dealing with various aspects of the players’ athletic and non-athletic life (e.g., performance, training, lifestyle, recovery, future planning), together with crisis-related issues (e.g., coping with uncertainty). These workshops were delivered by the first author during 12 weeks of a competitive season. The mixed-methods evaluation revealed a perceived improvement in players’ personal coping resources (e.g., increased awareness) and a decrease in their fatigue and stress. This Project contributes to the athlete career sport psychology discourse and the emerging athlete mental health discourse by presenting the ECM-H and CPS-H frameworks, and the CAP Life as a professional handball player, grounded in the cultural context of Swedish handball. The frameworks and CAP can serve as inspiration for future research and practice, informed by a cultural praxis. The Project shows the usefulness of working as a scientist-practitioner and establishing theory-researchpractice-context links for the promotion of culturally informed implications, and supports the work of facilitating a holistic understanding of athletes’ striving for healthy, successful, and long-lasting careers in sport and life.

During the last decade I have been employed as a sport psychology practitioner for the Swedish men’s handball team (further – the Team). Pinnacles of my work were psychological preparations for three consecutive Olympic Games (2012-2020). In this presentation I will share my narratives about the psychological preparations for these Games and lessons learned. Major interventions were carried out during the pre-Olympic camps about one month before the related Games. The content was adapted to match the request from the coach and my assessment of players’ needs. Below I organize my experiences in three narratives. The first is “The Team is in crisis, and I struggled to show competence and earn players’ trust”. The players gathered after a heartbreaking defeat in a qualifying match for a future World Championship. The Team were torn, and the 2012 Olympics was approaching fast. The coach highlighted the need for team building to mend the pieces and be able to perform as a unit. I answered the call by conducting group workshops and work with individual athletes clarifying roles and goals. The Team performed over expectations and won a silver medal. I for my part, won trust. The second narrative is entitled “Rio had a sweet melody, but we danced to a different tune”. Preparing for Rio 2016, the coach asked for a copy-paste story to repeat the prior success. The Team felt in harmony, and everything went (too) smooth, few players wanted to prepare for possible adversity. I worked with team dynamics and chose to mainly focus the individual work on potential stressors and coping. Soon I realized I was dancing on my own. Sweden ended last in their group, only winning one match. At the time I am writing this abstract, I plan for the pre-camp for Tokyo 2020 and my narrative so far is “It’s possible to be big in Japan but I’m the worrying kind”. There has been a rejuvenation of the Team and a new coaching staff focuses on the Team values requesting my mainly individual level work. I think we mix apples and oranges by talking about values but not about behaviors and not preparing enough for potential stressors. Here are the lessons learned to share: professional philosophy is dynamic and changes with experiences, the situation in the Team is a key for planning the applied work, and coaches’ requests may bring changes in the practitioner’s approach.

This doctoral project was inspired by a set of challenges articulated in the cultural praxis of athletes’ careers paradigm (Stambulova & Ryba, 2013), and especially in regard of contextualizing career research and existing ‘general’ frameworks. Innovative aspects of this study consisted of: (a) exploring career experiences of Swedish handball players with foci on stages and transitions in their athletic and non-athletic development, and (b) consolidating the players’ first-hand data into an empirical career model of Swedish handball players (further – the empirical model). The holistic athletic career model (Wylleman, Reints & De Knop, 2013) served as a prototype for the empirical model and was useful in structuring the players’ career experiences. Eighteen elite Swedish handball players (retiring or just recently retired) took part in narrative type interviews about their whole careers with an interest in both athletic and non-athletic developments. Thematic analysis initially took a deductive turn to identify the handball career structure, and then the empirical data relevant to each stage/sub-stage were analysed inductively to identify themes describing players’ career experiences at each stage. Finally, the themes were incorporated into the stage-like structure, and the empirical model was completed. The model describes careers of Swedish handball players as having four stages – initiation, development (with three sub-stages), mastery (with four sub-stages), and discontinuation. It also contains eight layers – athletic categorisation in terms of age, pathways of the Swedish Handball Federation, academic/vocational, psychological, psychosocial, and financial developments – all aligned with age markers and complemented by sets of themes describing players’ stage-by-stage career experiences from the holistic perspective. Further in the project the empirical model will be used to create the ‘whole career’ psychological support system for Swedish handball players.

Introduction: Athletes have to pay a price to make their dream true, and for many this dream is to become professional and play in the national team (NT). Playing in the NT is often seen as the pinnacle of an athletic career but also as a period when athletes experience new demands due to their dual responsibility of playing in the club and in the NT. This dual responsibility brings additional performance demands, increased workload, extended travelling, many days away from home, etc., and in a combination with too little recovery, and various role conflicts leads to a stressful living. The transition to the NT can be classified as a quasi-normative (Stambulova, 2016) that is relevant only to elite level athletes. Challenging nature of this transition in a combination with its personal and social significance might put players at risk of poor coping and mental health problems (Frank, Nixdorf, & Beckmann, 2015; Stambulova & Wylleman, 2014; Stambulova 2017).

 Aim and theoretical framework: The transition to the NT was identified as a topic specific for the mastery stage of the players’ careers in the empirical career model of Swedish handball players (Ekengren, Stambulova, Johnson, & Carlsson, submitted). This model complemented by the athletic career transition model (Stambulova, 2003; 2009) served as theoretical frameworks for this study. The aim of this study was to examine Swedish elite handball players’ experiences of participating in both a professional club and the NT with a specific focus on their perceived demands.

 Method: In the narrative-type interviews 18 Swedish elite handball players (9 men, 9 women) were encouraged to talk about their careers with foci on both athletic and non-athletic development (Ekengren et al., submitted). Narratives about their experiences of playing both in professional club and the NT were extracted from a larger data set and thematically analysed (Braun, Clarke & Terry 2015).

 Results: The national team was described as a great reward for their performance efforts and achievements, but also as a burden of being time and energy consuming:

 It’s a great honour to play in the national team, and you don’t want to turn it down. But I didn’t get the recovery I required to be able to play in both. So, I had to say “no”, because it tears greatly. It wasn’t right to my club that pays my salary. (Female player 7)

 Major themes outlining the players’ perceived demands in the NT transition were:

• “it wears and tears a lot physically and psychologically” (e.g., brings higher performance demands but also leaves small time for recovery);
• “you are caught in the treadmill of recurrent events (e.g., difficult to maintain good life quality being away from family)
• “you are torn between the two team” (e.g., conflicting interests in professional and national team)
• “you are torn between different roles” (e.g., between being the NT player and a club player, a players and a family member)

 Discussion and conclusions: The project reveals how professional athletes appraised the increasing demands when selected to the NT. On the one hand, the NT transition was seen as a reward, but on the other hand, the transition demands put players under risk of too high life stress with possible negative consequences (e.g., injuries, burnout, and depression) to follow (e.g., Ivarsson, Stambulova, & Johnson, 2016; Stambulova, 2017). Based on the research findings recommendations will be provided for psychological support of NT-players and their coaches/managers in club and federation. This will include, for example, promoting a holistic view of the players’ situation, individual recovery plans and communication skills.

In cultural sport psychology and athlete migration literature (Ryba, Schinke, Stambulova, & Elbe, 2017) there is a call for studying athletes’ transnational mobility and cultural transitions out of, and back to the country of origin. This call is also echoed in the cultural praxis of athletes’ careers paradigm (Stambulova & Ryba, 2013) attracting attention of career researchers. This study is aimed at exploring “back home” re- adaptation challenges of elite Swedish handball players after several years of playing professionally abroad. Eleven players (six females) were interviewed about their careers from the beginning to the end, and their narratives about the transition back to Sweden were extracted from the larger data set and thematically analysed (Braun & Clarke, 2013). Participants spent abroad for M=7.2±2.8 years, and many of them came back having families and kids. Several informants narrated that the transition was more challenging than they expected, and they (especially at the beginning) felt themselves as strangers in their own land. Five major themes describing the transition challenges were: “to rethink self-identity”, “to renew family life”, “to re- establish links with relatives and family”, “to understand local laws and regulations”, “to keep in pace with the society”. The identity issue was addressed through a sense of being “in between” the identities of the home and the foreign cultures that elevated emotional discomfort, especially at the early phase of re-adjustment. Three themes describing coping strategies used in the re-adaptation were: “don’t give up” (i.e., attempt to change own attitude and the situation to the better), “use social skills” (e.g., be alert and communicate) and “search for social support” (e.g., from a spouse and close family). Based on the findings, recommendations will be provided for pre-retirement planning of elite athletes and psychological support in their cultural transition and re-adaptation back home.

Introduktion

Handboll har en lång tradition inom svensk idrottsrörelse och tillhör de mest populära lagidrotterna. I Sverige finns 110 000 utövare, lika många män och kvinnor, som är aktiva i landets 400 föreningar. Internationella Handbollförbundet har 190 medlemsländer och Sverige är en ledande nation inom världshandbollen med 21 medaljer i OS, VM och EM. Att satsa på en karriär som elitspelare i handboll är attraktivt. I Sverige finns ett Riksidrottsgymnasium och 38 Nationellt godkända idrottsutbildningar som kvalitetssäkras av Svenska Handbollförbundet (SHF). Det innebär att drygt 400 spelare årligen tar examen från ett elithandbollsgymnasium. Trots handbollens utbredning och popularitet finns lite kunskap om handbollskarriären, utifrån övergångar och utmaningar som aktiva ställs inför. Kunskapen är av vikt för aktiva liksom tränare, föräldrar och stödpersoner t.ex. idrottspsykologiska rådgivare. Forskningen är relevant för föreningar, förbund, gymnasier och SHF:s spelarutbildning, landslagsverksamhet och tränarutbildning. Ökad kunskap medför att fler fullföljer och optimerar sin karriär, samt stannar kvar och är välmående en längre period. Dagens idrottsforskning inom karriärområdet och aktuell studie belyser betydelsen av förklaringsmodeller som ser karriären från ett idrottsspecifikt och holistiskt kontext. Forskning som dels fångar den verksamma kulturen, dels studerar den livslånga processen och hela karriären, tillskillnad från enstaka moment.

Syfte & teoretisk ram

Syftet i delstudie 1 är att utifrån intervjuer med etablerade svenska landslagsspelare i handboll studera handbollskarriären och utveckla en Empirisk karriärmodell (EKM) för svenska handbollsspelare. Modellen valideras i tre separata fokusgrupper, bestående av tränare, herr- och damspelare. Syftet i delstudie 2 är att utveckla och validera ett Psykologiskt stödsystem (PSS) för svenska elithandbollsspelare. Utifrån EKM och doktorandens gedigna erfarenhet av tillämpat arbete med svenska elit- och landslagsspelare skapas ett stödsystem, som validering i fyra fokusgrupper; tränare, herr-, damspelare och idrottspsykologiska rådgivare. Utifrån diskussioner och slutsatser sammanställs PSS. Det teoretiska ramverket består av: Cultural praxis of athletes’ careers (Stambulova & Ryba, 2014), Holistic athletic career model (Wylleman, Reints & De Knop, 2013) och Athletic career transition model (Stambulova, 2003).

Metod

Studiens urval är strategiskt och baseras på att informanterna ska ha spelat minst 20 tävlingslandskamper på seniornivå för Sverige, de ska ha varit professionella idrottare på internationell klubbnivå i minst fem år och vara i slutet av sin karriär, alternativt ha avslutat sin idrottsliga karriär. Om idrottskarriären är avslutad ska avskedet skett inom de närmsta tre åren. Under 2015 har pilotintervju och 18 stycken narrativa intervjuer genomförts. Studien har en jämn fördelning mellan kvinnor och män. De kvinnliga informanternas ålder är mellan 28 och 34 år (M = 30,6, SD = 2,2), de manliga informanternas ålder är mellan 27 och 38 år (M = 34,4, SD = 3,1). I snitt har kvinnorna spelat 83 landskamper (SD = 36,5), männen har i snitt spelat 123 landskamper (SD = 57,3).

Resultat och diskussion

Analys av intervjuer pågår således är studiens resultat och diskussion under arbete. Reflektion från aktuell process är att idrottskarriären är av central betydelse och anges som det område som alltid har prioriterats högst i informanternas liv. Det finnas en tendens i att kvinnor ställs inför en komplexare tillvaro eftersom de väljer att ha uppmärksamhet på parallella områden i livet, som de därmed får hantera. Den ekonomiska verkligheten är av naturliga skäl tuffare för kvinnorna, eftersom ersättningar är markant lägre. Det är också en faktor som skapar ökad fokus på andra områden i livet, främst utbildning. Förståelsen kring det som krävs på internationell nivå, utmaningar som väntar och färdigheter som gynnar, verkar vara relativt låg innan de aktiva i studien de facto hamnar på aktuell nivå. Flera val är medvetna samtidigt som informanterna reflekterar kring att tillfälligheter och tur är återkommande faktorer i deras karriär.

Psychological interventions with elite athletes should benefit from the developmental and preventive perspectives (Stambulova, 2016) keeping in mind the highly stressful nature of elite sports and potential threats for athletes’ mental health (Schinke, Stambulova, Si, & Moore, 2017). The authors of this presentation (2018) explored 18 Swedish professional handball players’ career experiences with foci on major stages and transitions in their athletic and non-athletic developments. The players’ information was consolidated into an empirical career model of Swedish handball players, covering several stages and layers in players’ development with relevant transitions, pathways, and themes describing content of each stage. This empirical model served a basis for planning the intervention study with professional handball players aimed at helping them to develop resources and strategies to meet elite career demands and maintain health and wellbeing. The presentation will focus on development of a career training program (CTP) for 16 professional players (age 18-35) representing an elite handball club in the South of Sweden. The CTP is structured into eight workshops with their content derived from major demands and stressors of handball players during the mastery stage of their careers. After the CTP kick off, major topics of the workshops include: professional players’ values and committed actions, training, performance, lifestyle, and recovery issues, injury prevention, the future and athletic retirement. The content of the workshops guided by a combination of concurrent and proactive approaches will include acceptance and commitment training, life skills development, pre-transition planning, monitoring assessment, and creating a personal development plan.

This study is part of the PhD-project aimed at examining Swedish professional handball players’ career experiences and developing an applied framework to improve career assistance. Inspired by the cultural praxis of athletes’ careers (Stambulova & Ryba, 2013; 2014) we blend theory, research, and practice with the athletes’ cultural and sporting contexts. In the previous part, the author and three co-authors (2018) developed an empirical career model (ECM-H) describing players’ changing demands across career stages from the holistic perspective (Wylleman, Rosier, & De Knop, 2015) and showing that they need different types of career assistance at different stages. This second part study aims to develop and validate an applied framework – the career-long psychological support services (CLPSS). To create the initial version of the CLPSS a heuristic approach combining the ECM-H with the author’s applied sport psychology experiences was used. Then the initial version was validated in two focus groups with elite handball coaches (n=4) and experienced sport psychology consultants (n=3) following Kreuger and Casey’s (2015) recommendations. The participants were positive to the initial version and suggested several improvements. The validated CLPSS implements the whole career and whole person perspectives with the four career stages aligned with age markers and three layers of career assistance issues derived from the Swedish handball context, athletes’ perceived demands, and desirable support from relevant stakeholders (e.g., coaches, parents). The CLPSS helps to understand, what issues to address and when in a career to facilitate players’ coping, reduce unnecessary stress, and promote sustainable careers in elite handball.

The authors of this paper share how they developed and validated an applied framework termed the career-long psychological support services in Swedish handball (CPS-H). The CPS-H is grounded in career research within Swedish handball and examples of efficient career assistance practice complemented by applied experiences of the first author. The authors used a heuristic approach to sketch the CPS-H initial version, which later was validated in three focus groups with end-users (handball players, coaches, and sport psychology practitioners) and transformed into the validated CPS-H. Promoting a combination of the proactive, educational, whole career, whole environment, and whole person approaches, the framework is structured as having interrelated parts addressing questions: where (changes in the contexts), when (ages, career stages), what (athletes’ needs and potential working issues), who (support providers), why (philosophy shared by the stakeholders), and how (forms of services) of psychological support. The authors further reflect on the CPS-H and its implementation and provide general and stage-specific recommendations for support providers. Although the CPS-H is contextualized in a specific sport and culture, some lessons can be applicable across countries and sport boarders. © 2020 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

The study was aimed at developing the empirical career model of Swedish professional handball players by means of exploring their career experiences in athletic and non-athletic developments through the lens of the holistic athletic career model. Eighteen Swedish professional handball players (nine men and nine women), who had recently terminated or were finishing their careers took part in semi-structured interviews about their careers from the beginning to the end with an interest in both athletic and non-athletic developments. Thematic analysis initially focused on identifying the handball career structure (i.e. stages and sub-stages). Then, the interviews were analysed inductively to identify shared themes in the players’ experiences relevant to each career stage. These themes were incorporated in the relevant stages, and the empirical career model of Swedish professional handball players (further – the empirical model) was finalised. The empirical model describes careers of Swedish handball players as having four athletic stages – initiation, development (with three sub-stages), mastery (with four sub-stages), and discontinuation – complemented by players’ psychological, psychosocial, academic/vocational, and financial developments. Each stage is also aligned with age markers and contains themes describing players’ career experiences from the holistic perspective. The empirical model contributes to contextualised career research and serves as a basis for developing career-long psychological support services in Swedish handball including player/coach/parent education organised by the Swedish Handball Federation.© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

The aim of this study was to describe gender-specific career paths of Swedish professional handball players. A reanalysis of Ekengren et al. (2018) career interviews with nine male and nine female players led to creating two composite vignettes using the athletes’ own words, accounted for typical features in the male and female players’ career paths. Seven themes were identified in the analysis of the men’s transcripts and eight themes derived from the women’s transcripts. Further, the themes of both vignettes were aligned with career stages described in our previous study (Ekengren et al. 2018). The male players’ vignette is interpreted as a performance narrative congruent with elite handball culture that promotes performance success and profitable professional contracts. The female players’ vignette is more holistic, embracing handball, studies, motherhood, and how they ought to be as Swedish women. Recommendations for future research are provided. © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

In this paper we share how a career assistance program (CAP) was developed, implemented, and evaluated with a Swedish elite handball team. Within this case study the initial version of the CAP’s content was created based on the career-long psychological support services in Swedish handball framework and the first author’s applied experiences. During implementation the head coach terminated unexpectedly and the team appeared in a crisis. This transitional situation led to modification of the CAP to help the players cope with changes. Eighteen players took part in eight workshops dealing with various aspects of their sport and non-sport life (e.g., performance, training, lifestyle, recovery, future planning) with crisis-related issues (e.g., coping with uncertainty) incorporated. Mixed-methods evaluation revealed the players’ perceived increase in personal resources (awareness, skills) and decrease in stress and fatigue. Reflections on working in applied sport psychology from a holistic perspective in a dynamic real-life setting are provided.

Many athletes strive to excel in their sport, dreaming of fame and fortune, aiming for a career as a professional athlete. In the Nordic countries, becoming professional often implies a migration across national borders. In this relocation, it is not only crucial for transnational athletes to adapt in sport, a cultural and psychological adaptation is also needed (Ryba, Haapanen, Mosek, & Ng, 2012; Agergaard & Ryba, 2014). The purpose of this study was to examine team handball players’ experiences of their first transition and adaptation to a professional league in a foreign country, with a specific focus on their perceived demands and coping strategies. Participants were 18 senior elite team handball players (10 male, 8 female). During narrative-type interviews participants were encouraged to tell their story, focusing on how they experienced their first transnational transition. Participants’ narratives were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2013), themes and patterns of meaning were identified. The four major themes of perceived transition demands were: ‘Learn new cultural and social codes’, ‘Adjust to the rules of the new club’, ‘Accept the result focused environment’, ‘Acknowledge your role and play it’. Three themes of coping strategies were: ‘Embrace the challenge’ (e.g., be aware of the new context, negotiate and adapt to new norms and expect the unexpected) ‘Embrace yourself’ (e.g., to care for and prioritize yourself in a self-centered, but still positive way) and ‘Embrace your demons’ (e.g., accept feelings of doubt and anxiety and carry on regardless of them). Based on the research findings recommendations will be provided for psychological support of transnational athletes in their transition and adaptation abroad.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka om de handbollsspelare som når Riksläger 4 skiljer sig åt i användandet av copingstrategier jämfört med de handbollsspelare som inte når Riksläger 4. Resultatet visade att spelare som deltog på läger R4 uppvisade högre värden av copingstrategierna: coping with adversity,concentration,confidence and achievment against coachability, peaking under pressure och freedomofworry än den gruppen av spelare som endast deltog vid R1. Resultatet tyder på att de spelare som blir uttagna till R4 i högre utsträckning använder sig av effektivare copingstrategier något som även är i linje med tidigare forskning (t.ex. van Yperen, 2009). Författarna rekommenderar därför både tränare och spelare att öka sin kunskap kring copingstrategiers eventuella inverkan på prestation för att kunna optimera den aktives chanser att lyckas.

Objectives: First, to map the prevalence of symptoms of positive mental health, anxiety, depression and sleep difficulties, along with the coexistence of these symptoms, among players in the Swedish Women’s Hockey League (SDHL). Second, to investigate relationships between these mental health symptoms and demographic variables (ie, age, injuries, dual careers), social support and psychological flexibility.

Methods: Players from nine teams in SDHL (n=182; mean age 22.3±SD 4.8, range 16–35) participated in this cross-sectional study. An online survey, including validated self-assessment questionnaires, conducted data collection. The questionnaires were distributed just before the play-offs started in the 2022–2023 season. Mental health variables were presented as descriptive statistics, and associations were investigated through multivariate binary logistic regression analyses.

Results: The response rate was 91%. Moderate or severe symptoms were reported among 29.7% for sleep difficulties, 20.9% for anxiety and 18.1% for depression. Nineteen per cent reported comorbidities. Sixty percent reported flourishing mental health. Lower psychological flexibility was associated with lower odds of flourishing mental health and higher odds of symptoms of anxiety, depression and sleep difficulties. Social support was associated with higher odds of flourishing mental health and lower odds of sleep difficulties.

Conclusion: 6 of every 10 players reported not reaching the ideal state of mental health (ie, flourishing mental health without mental illness). Mental health symptoms were statistically significantly associated with psychological flexibility and social support, suggesting that these factors will be beneficial to consider when preventing mental illness and promoting mental health in this population.

This study examined the effectiveness of a prevention intervention program to lower the incidence of injury for soccer players with at-risk psychosocial profiles. The Sport Anxiety Scale, the Life Event Scale for Collegiate Athletes, and the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory-28 were used to screen for psychosocial risk factors outlined in the stress and injury model (Williams & Andersen, 1998). Thirty-two high injury-risk players were identified and randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Injuries of participants were reported by their coaches. The intervention program consisted of training in 6 mental skills distributed in 6 to 8 sessions during 19 weeks of the competitive season. The results showed that the brief intervention prevention program significantly lowered the number of injuries in the treatment group compared with the control group. © 2005 Human Kinetics Publishers, Inc.

Combining sport and education (or work) is termed as athletes ‘dual careers’ (DC) and it is an evolving area of research in Europe, guided by the European Union Guidelines on Dual Careers of Athletes (2012). In this presentation, results from a Swedish national study will be presented. The aim of the study was to investigate university student-athletes’ DC competences (i.e., knowledge, skills, experience and attitudes) for a successful DC. The study is part of the European project ‘Gold in Education and Elite Sport’ (GEES) involving eight other European countries. Seventy-one Swedish university student-athletes (mean age= 25.2) representing various sports completed the DC Competence Survey. The survey measured student-athletes’ perceptions (i.e., importance and possession) of 38 DC competences (e.g., ability to prioritize, dedication to succeed, self-discipline, ability to cope with stress), and student-athletes’ experience of, coping with, and use of competences in seven challenging DC scenarios (e.g., missing important days in school, moving away from home, injury). The Latent profile analysis on student-athletes’ possession of competences indicated that the model with a 3-profile solution provided the best fit (entropy = 0.876; Parametric Bootstrapped likelihood ratio test =.01). Profile-1 (P1: n=7) corresponded to student-athletes with an average level of competence; Profile-2 (P2: n=42) to an average-to-good level of competence, and Profile-3 (P3: n=22) to a good competence level. Profile-3 outscored the two other profiles in terms of mean coping with all seven DC scenarios (P1: M=3.39; P2: M=3.58; P3: M=4.15), indicating that the more competences student-athletes possessed the better they coped. However, the pattern of coping between profiles was not consistent across all scenarios, suggesting that some competences were more important for some scenarios and less important for others. Further analysis aims to reveal scenario-specific competences to guide practitioners helping student-athletes in specific DC scenarios.

Balancing studies, a personal life and sports, that is, having a dual career, is considered as a challenge associated with transitional demands in athletic and non-athletic (psychological, psychosocial, academic/vocational, financial) domains (Wylleman, Reints, & De Knop, 2013). The aim of this study was to investigate student-athletes’ university transition with a specific focus on how student-athletes balance different domains of their lives. Twenty-three Swedish university student-athletes (mean age= 21.52; 16 males and 7 females) representing six sports (equestrianism, golf, handball, ice hockey, soccer, table tennis) partook in the study. Participants completed the Dual Career Monitoring Survey (DCMS), weekly, over the first twelve weeks of their university education. The DCMS is developed by the authors and measures student-athletes perceptions of balance, time investments, demands, coping, satisfaction, resources and barriers in relation to sport, studies, private life, social life and financial situation. In exploring student-athletes’ perception of dual career balance throughout the twelve weeks, an intra-class correlation analysis revealed a between-person variance of 0.14 (14%). That is, with regards to balance in their dual careers 86% was due to within-person variance, suggesting that balance is idiosyncratic and that further analysis should investigate within-person change. Encouraged by these findings we continued with a person-centered analysis using the Dynamic P-technique for modeling patterns of data (Nelson, Aylward, & Rausch, 2011). The relationships between changes in balance (i.e., prioritizing sport, studies or other domains of life), demands, coping and satisfaction throughout the twelve weeks will be presented. Our findings contribute to the understanding of balance as a central tenet of athletes’ dual careers (Second author et al., 2015). From our findings we suggest practitioners to take into account the individual dynamics in dual career balance from a whole-person perspective.

Currently, European Universities work on internationalization of their programs in response to the Europe 2020 Strategy, emphasizing a higher quality of education and employability of young people. During the last few years, fruitful collaboration was established between an American University and a European University. Culminating points of this collaboration were two visits of American students and staff to the host-university in Europe during 2013-15. In this presentation, representatives of the host-university will share their experiences and suggestions for organizing one week study abroad programs for American students and reflect on their pre-, during, and post-visit experiences. The preparatory period lasted for several months and included a visit to the American university to take part in marketing the study abroad trip, several meetings to design the program for the visit and ensure that all involved knew their responsibilities, discussing and receiving approval of the program from the two international departments. The program consisted of four educational modules (classes specially designed for the American students and classes together with local students involving teachers from both universities), sport events (e.g., practicing team handball with a local team, table tennis tournament), and social/cultural events (e.g., sightseeing tours). The American students also received a homework assignment to reflect on what they learned about the host-country’s higher education system, sport and exercise psychology at the host-university, and the host-country’s sport culture during their visit. Their assignments were collected post-visit and content analyzed. The summary (also shared with the American side) provided us with not only positive feedback, but also some insights into how to improve our work. Therefore, the benefits of the visits were mutual. This presentation will conclude with a list of suggestions to help promote the development of study a broad experiences for those universities that may host such programs.

In Sweden dual ‘sport and education’ career (DC) programs on the high school level are established at 51 settings across the country. Within these programs student-athletes practice their sport in sport clubs and in educational settings, and have supportive conditions at school (e.g., flexible scheduling). This study, investigating Swedish high school student-athletes’ DC competences, is a national project and also a part of the European project ‘Gold in Education and Elite Sport’ (GEES) with eight other countries involved.  In this presentation (approved by the ethical board of the GEES consortium) we briefly introduce the GEES project and then focus on Swedish research findings. The DC Competences Survey was used to explore student-athletes general as well as scenario-specific DC competences. The sample consisted of 909 high school student-athletes (mean age =18.2; 43% females) from various sports. In examining general competences, the participants were introduced to 38 c ompetences and asked to evaluate them in terms of possession and importance for a successful DC. The highest in possession was “ability to live independently”, and the top three in importance (also evaluated higher by females) included: “perseverance during challenging times and in the face of setbacks”, “understanding importance of rest and recuperation”, “ability to cope with stress in sport and study”. In examining scenario-specific competences the participants read six scenarios, each presenting a difficult DC situation (e.g., missing significant days of study, sacrifices in social life, living away from home, injury), and responded about coping experiences (including perceived effectiveness) and related competences. The competences significantly contributed to effectiveness of coping with DC scenarios. It was also possible to identify transferable competences used by student-athletes in four or more scenarios (e.g., “dedication to succeed in both sport and stu dies”). The findings have become useful in defining the content of DC support services in Sweden.

Within the North American intercollegiate (school-based) sport context, the career development of student-athletes is an established research area focused on athletes’ transition to the university and their athletic, professional, and personal development, including preparation for the university graduation and termination in sports. In contrast, athletes’ simultaneous pursuits in sport and studies, termed a “dual career” (DC) (European Union Guidelines on Athletes’ DCs, 2012), is a relatively new research trend within Europe, where sport is mainly club-based. Therefore, special arrangements between sporting and educational institutions are needed to facilitate athletes’ DCs. European researchers adopt a holistic lifespan perspective (Wylleman, Reints, & De Knop, 2013) to consider student-athletes’ athletic and academic pursuits as intertwined with their psychological, psychosocial, and financial developments. It is also emphasized that athletes (although supported) are  expected to take responsibility and develop competences to successfully initiate, maintain, and terminate their DCs. This symposium brings together North American and European researchers to discuss overlapping and specific features of DC research and applications in situ. The first presenter will briefly overview the US context of intercollegiate sports, introduce athletic identity foreclosure as a problematic issue and share a new sport-specific instrument to measure identity foreclosure. The second presenter will introduce a Canadian DC context and summarize four projects on how specific populations within it, that are immigrant and Aboriginal student-athletes, cope with DC challenges in conjunction with their acculturation processes. The third presenter will “transport” the audience to Finland and share a mixed-method project on achievement motivation of Finnish adolescent athletes, emphasizing a cultural construction of motivation. The fourth presenter will outline researc h findings on DC competences of Swedish adolescent athletes as a part of the European project titled “Gold and Education and Elite Sport”. The discussion will then be concentrated on DC intervention strategies, situated within national cultural contexts.

University faculty are often encouraged by administrators through strategic plans to develop international exchange opportunities to help students expand ideas and forms of thought (Lumby & Foskett, 2016). Given the educational, practical, and legal issues associated with the provision of sport psychology around the world, such a charge could be very helpful for the development of the field of sport and exercise psychology. This encouragement to internationalize programs makes sense in terms of the potential benefits for the educational, social, cultural and professional development of students, as well as the professional development of faculty. However, the logistical challenges of developing such programs can be overwhelming, especially when added on to the other pressures and time demands facing faculty in the current structure of higher education. This symposium will provide attendees with an overview of a specific exchange program developed between an American and European  university with the goal of enhancing the educational opportunities for students at both institutions. Individual presentations will address: 1) the benefits and challenges associated with internationalization of programs, 2) the steps associated with moving from concept development to actual travel, 3) the process of coordinating the receipt of study abroad students and faculty, and 4) future perspectives about international collaboration in the education of sport and exercise psychology students. The primary goals of this symposium will be to provide the audience with an understanding of the benefits and challenges of establishing and carrying out such a program from both the sending and receiving institutions, the provision of suggestions for moving forward with such a program from the perspective of both the sending and receiving institutions, and the identification of future directions with regard to the internationalization of sport and exercise psychology programs.

After two successful experiences of organizing study abroad trips, the American and the European Universities now work to continue and expand the collaboration for the benefit of both sides’ students and staff. Strategic planning for the future development of this internationalization initiative now includes the development of bi-direction exchanges, semester long study abroad opportunities, the development of a shared online learning platform for the creation of discussion boards and learning modules that would be available to both the American and European students, and the development of a joint on-line course on selected topics in international sport and exercise psychology related to major expertise areas at both universities. The focus of this presentation will be to reflect on the potential strategies in place to meet the current challenges of internationalization. This portion of the presentation will utilize a discussion based format and include the audience to help facilitate the achievement of the stated goals.  Such a discussion will include an overview of the lessons learned in the past, a discussion of the future vision for internationalization, and a discussion about problem solving strategies that can be used within university settings to enhance the likelihood of creating a successful internationalization experience for both students and faculty within sport and exercise psychology. As an outcome, the benefits and challenges of developing such an initiative will be outlined.