significant main effect of the result of the game on total wellbeing. Respondents whose club won the game had significantly higher total wellbeing than respondents whose club lost the game.
4.4 Discussion
4.4.1 Addressing the study aim and objectives
The primary aim of this study was to use a spectator-dominated sport (football) to examine whether watching football affect mental wellbeing (objective 1), in this case using spectators from eight football tiers (tier 3 – tier 10) in England and to examine whether the results of the game affect mental wellbeing (objective 2). Mental wellbeing of participants was determined using a composite questionnaire comprising of WEMWBS.
4.4.2 Effects of spectator-dominated sport (football) on mental wellbeing Mental wellbeing
The findings from this study show that mental wellbeing of spectator-dominated sport (football) from eight football tiers in England was not different between the tiers. Mental wellbeing did not vary with age and gender, although WEMWBS was not designed to identify individuals with exceptionally high or low levels of positive mental health. The mean mental wellbeing score of the participants from eight football tiers was 51.52, which was within one standard deviation from the mean mental wellbeing value of the Scottish Population Survey 2012 (Gray and Leyland, 2013) of mean = 49.9,
Chapter 4. Spectator-dominated sport: Effects of watching football on mental wellbeing
113 SD = 8.50, which is used as the benchmark for categorising levels of wellbeing (Braunholtz et al., 2007; Davoren et al., 2013).
There are no other examples in the published literature that have used WEMWBS to examine mental wellbeing with spectator-dominated sport, and no direct comparisons can therefore be made with other studies involving football spectators. There is a general consensus in the empirical literature that, regardless of the type of exercise or sport that the individual is involved in as a participant or spectator, it does not result in poor wellbeing (Terry, 2003; Pringle, 2004;
Darongkamas et al., 2011; Kim and Walker, 2012). This study suggests that mental wellbeing did not differ significantly by participants’ gender, age, football tier, location of the club and time of the match or results of the game.
The WEMWBS is used to monitor the national indicator “improve mental wellbeing” (Parkinson, 2012), and the findings from this study suggest that football spectators in England tend to be generally optimistic, cheerful, and relaxed, to have satisfying interpersonal relationships, and positive functioning, including energy, clear thinking, self-acceptance, personal development, mastery and autonomy (Smith-Merry et al., 2010; Mason and Kearns, 2013). Contrary to previous studies, the findings from this study did not report any age difference in mental wellbeing of participants. Rickwood et al. (2014) recently found that younger people aged 16-24 have the highest wellbeing score as do ages 65-71, whilst those aged 45-54 and 75+ have the lowest average mental wellbeing (Rickwood et al., 2014). This pattern of low self-reported wellbeing among middle aged and older age groups was also found by the earlier Scottish health survey in 2012 (Smith-Merry et al., 2010; The Scottish Health Survey, 2013).
Contrary to previous studies, no gender difference in mental wellbeing was found, although there was a significant interaction effect between gender and football game venue, where females at the
Chapter 4. Spectator-dominated sport: Effects of watching football on mental wellbeing
home games had significantly higher total wellbeing than males, while males at the away games had significantly higher total wellbeing than females. Thus, gender moderates the effect of football game venue on total wellbeing. Previous studies suggest that men have a significantly higher wellbeing than women (Kawachi and Berkman, 2001; Tennant et al., 2007; The Scottish Health Survey, 2013). Women are more likely to face mental wellbeing issues because of the position they play in their family and in society, including social factors such as caring for children and other dependent relatives, doing more tasks than men like being mothers, working for a paid job, running the household, etc. Women may also find it difficult to talk about their problems and feelings which might make them more susceptible to having lower mental wellbeing (Newton, 2013). Although the percentage of women in this study was low (23%), as watching football is more popular among men, this study shows that even watching away football games by females resulted in a lower mental wellbeing score compared to males in away games but not in home games.
Previous research by Frey and Stutzer (2010) found that winning a game of sport resulted in higher wellbeing, whereas losing a game resulted in lower wellbeing. Findings from this study show that there was a significant main effect of the result of the game on wellbeing: i.e. a more positive wellbeing score when games are won than when a game was lost (Frey and Stutzer, 2010). This suggests that winning football games can have a major positive impact on mental health of football spectators by increasing their positive emotions, relationships, identity and self-esteem. Previous study found that watching football was one of the most important things in the lives of football spectators (Spaaij and Anderson, 2010). The difference in score between the mental wellbeing score of teams that lose and win was 5.60, this reflects a clinical benefits and watching football could be used particularly when the team wins to improve mental wellbeing. Time point did not seem to change outcomes but winning or losing a game did, this is due to the reason that the measure used to measure mental wellbeing WEMWBS was a trait measure and could not be used
Chapter 4. Spectator-dominated sport: Effects of watching football on mental wellbeing
115 as a state measure and this could affect the outcome at the different time points. This is one of the limitations of this study.
4.4.3 Limitations
The study on examining mental wellbeing across the eight football tiers in England has added to the evidence-base by providing quantitative analysis of the effects of various aspects of football on mental wellbeing. However, the study does have some limitations:
Although the study was found to be successful in examining the mental wellbeing of the
participants, the participation in the study was limited to a short questionnaire; and other outcome measures such as the connection to nature could not be added to the questionnaire because of the short time frame that the football spectators could devote to complete the questionnaire.
The response from the online question was very low, possibly because the football
spectators were not interested after watching the game, and the data collection was done mainly at the football games where the spectators could not be distracted while watching football and they left the games immediately after they had finished.
The lack of representative football club in tiers 1 and tier 2 in Essex could not allow data to
be collected from these tiers. Future research will benefit from data collection from the top two football tiers. Also, tier 11 had very limited attendance at games, thereby excluding the tier from the study.
WEMWBS was not able to measure mental wellbeing differences at different time point
because it’s a trait measure and not a state measure and suitable state measure could be used in future research, such as Profile of Mood States (POMS).
WEMWBS was used to assess the mental wellbeing of people attending football matches and there is need for a longitudinal data on individual’s overtime to be able to measure mental wellbeing better.
Chapter 4. Spectator-dominated sport: Effects of watching football on mental wellbeing