Correlation between Sport Participation, Psychological Well-being and Physical Complaints among Students of Kerman University of Medical Sciences

The physical and mental well-being of youth is one of the most important goals of every society. Sport activity is one of the factors that plays an important role in the optimal physical and psychological performance of individuals. The purpose of this study was to determine the correlation between sport participation, psychological well-being and physical complaints among students of Kerman University of Medical Sciences. The research was descriptive-correlational. The population of this study was Kerman University of Medical Sciences (5000 people). 360 people were selected using stratified random sampling using Krejci and Morgan tables. Data were collected by the “Questionnaire Psychological Well-Being”, “Physical Complaints Questionnaire” and the “Physical Activity Participation Questionnaire”. The validity of the instruments was confirmed by eight sports experts and reliability through Cronbach's alpha. Data was analyzed using SPSS.20. Students' psychological well-being and students' physical complaints were significantly higher than the mean, which indicates the proper status of psychological well-being and inappropriate status of physical complaints. Also, there was a positive and significant correlation between sport participation with physical complaints (r = -0.26, P = 0.001) and psychological well-being (r = 0.54, P = 0.001). In addition, 32 percent of the variance in total physical complaints changes among students is related to the participation component and psychological well-being. The results indicated a positive correlation between sport participation and psychological well-being and its negative correlation with physical complaints. It is suggested that universities sports department provide appropriate equipment for student sport to reduce physical complaints and improve psychological well-being.