Fight Medicine Research Institute

Version of recordOriginal research

Personality traits and levels of anxiety and depression among martial artists

A cross-sectional study

Gaia Leuzzi, Benedetto Giardulli, Emanuela Pierantozzi, Filippo Recenti, Andrea Brugnolo, Marco Testa. 2024. BMC Psychology.

Published in BMC Psychology, a peer-reviewed journal

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-024-02096-8

Read the full textPDF filesPubMed 39478630

The medical question

How do anxiety and depression scores among people who train in fighting arts compare with those of the general population?

The Fight Medicine Research Institute uses this evidence to frame questions about anxiety and depression among people who train in fighting arts. The study’s population, mostly judo and karate practitioners whose level of competition was not recorded, determines which questions it can inform.

Summary

In a survey of 770 adults who practise fighting arts in Italy, mostly judo and karate, average anxiety and depression scores were within the normal range of the questionnaire used.

What the work reports

  • In 2023, adults in Italy who had practised a fighting art for at least one year completed an anonymous online survey that included the 44-question Big Five Inventory (personality traits) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). 770 questionnaires were analysed.
  • Mean HADS scores were 5.93 for anxiety and 3.67 for depression, both within the 0–7 range that the scale classes as normal. The authors set these beside Italian reference values of 7.9 and 5.5 for people aged 45–54.
  • The authors conclude that karate and judo practitioners scored lower on anxiety and depression than the Italian reference values, and high on openness, conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness. They suggest that these arts might support the treatment of anxiety and depression in adults.

Limits to keep in mind

  • Cross-sectional survey with no comparison group. The scores were set beside published Italian reference values, so the study cannot show that practising a fighting art lowers anxiety or depression.
  • The authors note that the level of practice (for example professional or amateur) was not asked, and that the timing of the survey in relation to competition was not recorded.
  • The authors also note possible selection bias: the survey was online only, and people more interested in the topic may have been more likely to take part.
  • Judo and karate made up most of the sample. Only 5 participants practised boxing, 10 kickboxing, 6 Muay Thai and 8 MMA, and no results are given for those sports separately.

Source issues recorded

  • The abstract gives the share of men as 74.5%. Table 1 of the article gives 571 of 770 participants (74.2%), which agrees with the counts. This record uses the counts.

Publication status and notices

Published in BMC Psychology, a peer-reviewed journal. Original research article in BMC Psychology.

Form of this work: Version of record. The version of record is the final article as issued by its publisher.

No correction or retraction notice was found in Crossref or Europe PMC when this record was checked.

Fight Medicine Research Institute contribution

Fight Medicine Research Institute selected and catalogued this study, prepared an original research summary, verified its bibliographic details, and maintains the associated citation record.

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Article details

Relationship
External research catalogued by the Fight Medicine Research Institute. The original authors, journal and DOI are unchanged.
Published online
31 October 2024
Repository date
31 October 2024 (Europe PMC first-publication date)
Date used here
31 October 2024 (Crossref publisher deposit, online publication date)
Rights
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), as recorded by Europe PMC and the licence link in the source record. The licence does not cover commercial reuse or adapted versions. The summary on this page is Fight Medicine Research Institute’s own wording. No text or figure from the article is reproduced here. Licence terms.
Source check
, against PubMed Central full text, Crossref and Europe PMC. Checked under the direction of Casey C. Sears, Founder. An LLM was utilized as a research tool with direct human oversight.
Appraisal
The check covered bibliographic details, links, licence and notices. It is not a formal critical appraisal of the full paper.
Clinical review
None. This record is a research summary, not clinical education.
Funding and conflicts
The article states no funding and no competing interests.
Catalog
FH-050, added

Cite the original work

These files cite the work by its own authors, journal and DOI. Fight Medicine Research Institute appears only in a note, as curator of this catalog page.

Gaia Leuzzi, Benedetto Giardulli, Emanuela Pierantozzi, Filippo Recenti, Andrea Brugnolo, Marco Testa. Personality traits and levels of anxiety and depression among martial artists: a cross-sectional study. BMC Psychology. 2024;12(1):607. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-024-02096-8

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