Quality of Life in Professional, Semiprofessional, and Amateur Athletes

• Main Author: Ana Lúcia Padrão dos Santos
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2013-07-01
• Series: SAGE Open
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244013497723

The purpose of this study is to investigate the Ferrans and Powers Quality of Life Index (QLI) and its domains in Brazilian athletes. The sample comprised 219 athletes from six sports, and included 127 men and 92 women, with mean age of 23.1 years (±5.2). All participants were associated with a sports organization and participated in official competitions at the professional, semiprofessional, and amateur levels, and completed a self-report demographics survey and the QLI during one testing session. Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney U tests were utilized to compare differences between competitive levels and gender, respectively. Significant differences were reported between professional and amateur athletes for the socioeconomic ( p = .016; professional: 17.2, amateur: 15.1) and psychological/spiritual ( p = .011; professional: 24.3, amateur: 21.9) domains and between genders on the family domain ( p = .027; male: 21.8, female: 20.2). These findings suggest that professional athletes are more satisfied from a socioeconomic and psychological/spiritual perspective when compared with the amateur group. In addition, the results suggest that family issues are more satisfying and/or have less importance for males than for females. This study provides further insights into the quality of life of athletes and suggests differences based on competition levels and gender. Future studies are needed to further our understanding of the quality of life in athletes.