A higher prevalence of eating disorders has been found in athletes compared to those in the normal population. As such, it is important to understand the environment that may place athletes at greater risk including understanding the coach's role. The purpose of this study was to measure Canadian university coaches' knowledge and confidence of eating disorders in athletes. Using a web-based survey, head coaches completed questions that included information about demographic factors and knowledge of the condition. Confidence in their knowledge was measured as certainty in the correctness of their responses for each question. As a partial replication and extension of a previous survey developed and administered by Turk, Prentice, Chappell and Shields (1999), seven interviews were also conducted with coaches of female and mixed gender teams to add richness in description to the survey data. Overall, female coaches and male coaches of female and both male and female athletes had higher knowledge scores than those coaching male athletes only. The coaches in the present study also had higher overall knowledge and confidence scores than the coaches surveyed by Turk et al. (1999). When
relationships were examined between demographic factors and knowledge and confidence scores, previous experience with an athlete with an eating disorder was associated with a higher overall survey score as well as knowledge and confidence in dealing with a number of the subscales measured. Interview data from coaches highlighted a high level of knowledge and concern regarding eating disorders in athletes. However, conflicting evidence found from the interviews points to the need for better education programs, pre-participation examinations to screen for potential problems, and an implementation of an eating disorder policy by athletic departments.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/1928 |
| Date | 01 December 2009 |
| Creators | Yew, Ann |
| Contributors | Howe, Bruce L. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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