Comparing mental health of athlete and non-athlete female students of Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences

During the recent decades, many scholars focused on the physical activities as an influencing factor on psychological and mental status. Concerning the importance of university students’ mental health, this paper investigates the effects of physical activities on promoting their mental health. In this descriptive analytical study, 200 female students of Shaheed Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences were selected as the participants. The case group consists of athlete female students and the control group includes non-athlete female students. The instrument used in this study was GHQ-28, along with some more demographic questions. The collected data was analyzed by SPSS 16, using frequency, standard deviation, T-test and Chi-Square. data has shown that the average scores for general health differ significantly between athlete and non-athlete female students P<.05.The highest average scores were for depression among athlete female students and social dysfunction among non-athlete female students. The lowest average score was for anxiety among both groups. The average score of general health among non-athlete female students was higher than the cut-off point of 23. It was found that the higher the fathers’ education, the lower the general health’s scores were. The results showed that athletic students'' mental health is better than that of non-athletic ones.