Gürer Akçınar Arslan 2024

Inclusion criteria specified adolescents aged 11–16, with the athlete group actively engaged in rock climbing and registered with the federation, and the control group consisting of age- and gender-matched non-athletes. Exclusion criteria encompassed chronic medical conditions and a history of regular medication use, as well as incomplete psychiatric assessments or failure to complete the required psychological measures (K-SADS-PL, RCADS-CV, SDQ).

When choosing which participants will provide fair information, we chose a group of participants that would regularly participate in rock climbing and another matching group that do not rock climb to make sure that any results we see are specifically because of whether a participant routinely rock climbs or does not by comparison. This second group was matched to the first group by age and sex so that if there is a single 14-year-old male in the first group then we will have included a 14-year-old male in the second group that does not rock climb. To avoid unique results that may change our results not due to rock climbing, we did not include participants with certain mental conditions or medication use that could affect their mental health, as well as participants that did not complete the mental health tests we gave to them.

Conversely, increased sedentary behavior has been linked to higher levels of psychopathology and lower selfesteem in children and adolescents (Ibrahim et al., 2022; Medeiros et  al., 2024). Regular participation in sport activities during adolescence has been associated with reduction in depression levels in adulthood, indicating that the positive effects of PA extend beyond the period during which it is performed (Miller et al., 2024).

Children that do not participate in physical activity and exercising their bodies have less confidence and are less satisfied generally, sometimes leading to mental health conditions. Children that do participate in physical activity have also been found to be more confident and satisfied throughout both their childhood and into their adult lives.

While the differences in scores for social phobia and OCD were not statistically significant, the trend of lower scores in the athlete group suggests that rock climbing may still have some positive influence on these conditions. Non-significant results do not negate the possibility of a meaningful effect, particularly in real-world settings where multiple factors influence mental health outcomes.

There is a trend showing that rock climbers suffer from less mental health conditions, but the results did not have a large enough change to say for certain that rock climbers suffer from less mental health conditions. Even though it is not certain, there could still be a link because we had positive results and there are many other points that could affect the number of children with mental health conditions besides rock climbing.

A key limitation of this study is the relatively small sample size, which may affect the generalizability of the findings. Additionally, the reliance on self-report measures such as the RCADS-CV and SDQ scales introduces the possibility of response biases, such as social desirability or recall bias, which could influence the accuracy of the data

One part of our work that might make us have results that are not accurate or reliable is the small amount of children in each group, make each participant have a bigger effect on our results rather than a more accurate average. Our tests also used questions where the children and parents would choose the answers themselves, so the results may not be correct if the participants chose an inaccurate answer.

A similar experiment that uses bigger groups of individuals to get more accurate results among everyone and that uses different forms of testing. A test that tests for certain hormones or that observes behaviour such as positive and enjoyable social interactions throughout multiple days without breaching any privacy.

The results section used multiple statistical analyses tests that I was not familiar with such as Kolmogorov–Smirnov test and the the Mann–Whitney U Test that I am positive I would be able to understand with the help of someone else or personal study.