Background: Sleep is important for health and performance but has rarely been studied in professional dancers. The aim was to analyse the prevalence of sleep problems in professional dancers and their potential determinants at the beginning of and during the season.
Methods: Professional dancers of six German companies answered a comprehensive baseline questionnaire on physical and mental health, including the Sleep Difficulty Score of the Athletic Sleep Screening questionnaire (ASSQ-SDS) in the beginning of the season and weekly health reports during the season.
Background: Most studies on injuries of professional dancers used a medical-attention and/or time-loss definition and did not analyse all health problems. Further, almost all studies included just one company. The aim was to analyse all self-reported health problems of professional ballet and contemporary dancers during one season and compare sexes and five companies in Germany.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: A paucity of studies assesses the intersection of physical health (injury and illness), mental health and experiences of interpersonal violence (IV, also known as harassment and abuse) in sport. The objectives of this study were to examine the (a) frequency of self-reported physical and mental health problems of elite athletes in the 12 months prior to the survey, (b) differences in physical and mental health between male and female athletes and (c) relationship of athlete health with experiences of IV.
Methods: Elite adult athletes from four sports were approached at eight international events to answer an online questionnaire on their physical and mental health, as well as experiences of IV in sport within the past 12 months.
While several studies have analyzed the characteristics and burden of injuries and physical complaints in (pre-)professional dancers, mental health problems, other than eating disorders, have rarely been studied in professional ballet dancers. The aims were to (a) investigate the prevalence of self-reported mental health problems, and (b) analyze their potential associations with sleep disturbance, coping skills and social support in professional ballet dancers. During a pre-season health screening, professional ballet dancers of three companies were asked to answer questions on personal characteristics, current need and attempt to lose weight, chronic/recurrent mental health problems, and need of support from a psychotherapist as well as established questionnaires on depression (PHQ-9), generalized anxiety (GAD-7), eating disorders (EDE-QS), sleep disturbance (ASSQ), athletic coping skills (ACSI-28) and perceived social support (F-SozU-K6).
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