Factors that are most influential in children's continued and discontinued participation in organised sport :The role of sport injury and injury risk perceptions

Abstract

Sport participation is popular among millions of children in countries throughout the world. The well-documented health benefits of children's sport participation are important to help reduce childhood obesity and the burdens of other associated childhood diseases. Despite efforts to promote sport participation, unfortunately involvement for some children can be short-lived with sport dropout (or attrition) rates being relatively ltigh, particularly during adolescence. Although research investigating the area of child sport dropout began more than 30-years ago, there is still much to learn about the issue, and correspondingly it has been identified as a major concem by both sport practitioners and researchers. Whilst previous studies have uncovered some factors that distinguish children who do and do not drop out of sport, a detailed examination of the published literature is required to characterise these issues further and to identi fy where knowledge gaps exist more fully