Life Skills Training for Anxiety and Football Performance in Adolescent Players (LST-Football)

Life Skills Training and Athletic Performance of Non-Elite Adolescent Football Players: The Mediating Role of Reduced Cognitive Anxiety

This randomized behavioral study will evaluate whether an eight-week life skills training program will reduce cognitive sport anxiety and improve football performance in non-elite adolescent football players in China. A total of 160 players aged 14 to 17 years from 16 teams will be allocated individually within team-by-gender strata to either a life skills training group or a usual-training control group. The intervention will include 16 small-group sessions delivered twice per week for 45-60 minutes. Assessments will be conducted at baseline, immediately after the eight-week intervention, and four weeks later. The primary psychological outcome will be cognitive anxiety derived from the Worry and Concentration Disruption subscales of the Sport Anxiety Scale-2. The primary performance outcome will be a baseline-referenced Football Performance Index derived from passing accuracy, shooting accuracy, dribbling time, and agility time. The study hypothesis is that life skills training will reduce cognitive anxiety and improve football performance, and that greater reduction in cognitive anxiety immediately after the intervention will be associated with better football performance at follow-up.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Athletic Performance; Sport Anxiety
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Life Skills Training Program

Detailed Description

The study will use a two-arm parallel longitudinal randomized design with three assessment points: T0 at baseline, T1 immediately after completion of an eight-week intervention, and T2 four weeks after T1. Participants will be 160 non-elite football players aged 14-17 years from 16 teams. Individual randomization will be conducted within team-by-gender strata using a computer-generated random sequence, targeting 80 participants per condition.

The life skills intervention will consist of 16 sessions delivered over eight weeks (two sessions per week; 45-60 minutes per session; approximately 8-10 players per small group). Content will include goal setting, self-management, emotional regulation, problem solving, decision making, communication, teamwork, time management, coping with mistakes, and transfer of skills beyond sport. Control participants will continue usual football training without the structured life skills program during the study period. Attendance, possible control contamination, and concurrent psychological training will be recorded.

Cognitive sport anxiety will be assessed using the 15-item Sport Anxiety Scale-2. Worry will comprise items 3, 5, 8, 9, and 11; Concentration Disruption will comprise items 1, 4, 7, 13, and 15; Somatic Anxiety will comprise items 2, 6, 10, 12, and 14. Cognitive Anxiety will be defined as Worry plus Concentration Disruption. Football performance will be assessed using passing accuracy, shooting accuracy, dribbling time, and agility time. These components will be standardized using fixed baseline reference parameters, with time-based measures reverse-directed, and combined into a T-score Football Performance Index in which higher values indicate better performance.

Primary intervention effects will be evaluated with linear mixed-effects models using condition, time, and condition-by-time fixed effects, while accounting for repeated observations within participants and clustering within teams. Secondary outcome contrasts will be adjusted using the Holm procedure. The longitudinal indirect pathway will be evaluated as intervention allocation → T1 cognitive anxiety reduction → T2 football performance. The indirect effect will be estimated with 5,000 team-cluster bootstrap resamples. Sensitivity analyses will include per-protocol attendance, control contamination, concurrent psychological training, complete T2 cases, multiple imputation with 20 imputed datasets, and alternative FPI scoring.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 320
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• China
  • Tianjin, China, 301617
    • Tianjin University of Sport, School of Sports Training

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 14 years to 17 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Age 14 to 17 years at enrollment.
• Current membership in a non-elite/non-professional football team.
• At least one year of prior football participation.
• Regular participation in team football training.
• Ability and willingness to attend study assessments and, if allocated to the intervention, the life skills training sessions.
• Written informed consent from a parent or legal guardian and age-appropriate assent from the adolescent participant before study participation.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Current membership in a national football team.
• Current professional football contract.
• Current membership in a first-tier professional football academy.
• Any medical, musculoskeletal, or psychological condition that, in the judgment of the study team, would make participation in football-performance testing or the behavioral intervention unsafe or inappropriate.
• Inability to complete baseline assessment or comply with essential study procedures.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Life Skills Training; Participants will receive a structured eight-week life skills training program consisting of 16 small-group sessions delivered twice weekly. Each session will last 45-60 minutes and will involve approximately 8-10 players. Training will address goal setting, self-management, emotional regulation, problem solving, decision making, communication, teamwork, time management, coping with mistakes, and transfer of skills beyond sport.	Behavioral: Life Skills Training Program; An eight-week behavioral life skills program delivered in 16 small-group sessions (2 sessions/week; 45-60 minutes/session; approximately 8-10 players/group). The program will include goal setting, self-management, emotional regulation, problem solving, decision making, communication, teamwork, time management, coping with mistakes, and transfer of skills beyond sport. Attendance will be recorded. Per-protocol adherence will be defined as attendance at ≥80% of sessions (at least 13 of 16 sessions).
No Intervention: Usual Training Control; Participants will continue their usual football training during the eight-week study intervention period and will not receive the structured life skills training program. Potential exposure to intervention content and concurrent psychological training will be monitored.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Cognitive Anxiety Score	Cognitive Anxiety will be calculated as the sum of the Worry and Concentration Disruption subscales of the 15-item Sport Anxiety Scale-2. Each subscale contains five items scored from 1 to 4; therefore the Cognitive Anxiety composite will range from 10 to 40, with lower scores indicating less cognitive sport anxiety. The primary analysis will evaluate differential change between groups over time.	Baseline (T0), immediately post-intervention at 8 weeks (T1), and 4-week post-intervention follow-up (T2; approximately 12 weeks after baseline)
Change in Baseline-Referenced Football Performance Index	The Football Performance Index will combine passing accuracy, shooting accuracy, dribbling time, and agility time. Each component will be standardized using fixed baseline reference parameters; dribbling and agility time will be reverse-directed so higher standardized values represent better performance. The composite will be transformed to a T-score metric, with higher scores indicating better football performance.	Baseline (T0), immediately post-intervention at 8 weeks (T1), and 4-week post-intervention follow-up (T2; approximately 12 weeks after baseline)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Worry Subscale Score	5-item SAS-2 Worry subscale; range 5-20; lower scores indicate less worry.	Time frame: T0, T1 at 8 weeks, T2 at approximately 12 weeks.
Concentration Disruption Subscale Score	5-item SAS-2 Concentration Disruption subscale; range 5-20; lower scores indicate less concentration disruption.	Time frame: T0, T1 at 8 weeks, T2 at approximately 12 weeks.
Somatic Anxiety Subscale Score	5-item SAS-2 Somatic Anxiety subscale; range 5-20; lower scores indicate less somatic anxiety.	Time frame: T0, T1 at 8 weeks, T2 at approximately 12 weeks.
Passing Accuracy	Football-specific passing accuracy performance measure; higher values indicate better performance.	ime frame: T0, T1 at 8 weeks, T2 at approximately 12 weeks.

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Islamic Azad University, Sanandaj
• Collaborators: Islamic Azad University of Mashhad

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): April 11, 2026
• Primary Completion (Actual): July 15, 2026
• Study Completion (Actual): July 20, 2026

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: August 9, 2026
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 17, 2026
• First Posted (Actual): August 19, 2026

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): September 24, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 22, 2026
• Last Verified: August 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: China; adolescent athletes; athletic performance; life skills; football; soccer; cognitive anxiety; sport anxiety; psychological skills; youth sport
• Other Study ID Numbers: TUS-LST-22FTYB009-01

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: UNDECIDED

IPD Plan Description

The final individual participant data sharing plan will be determined after ethics approval and review of the parent/guardian consent, adolescent assent, institutional data-governance requirements, and applicable requirements in China. If sharing is permitted, only appropriately de-identified participant-level data will be considered for access.

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No