Internet-based Acceptance and Commitment Training for Elite Ice Hockey Players

Karolinska Institute

Status

Completed

Conditions

Performance Enhancement

Performance Anxiety

Mental Health

Treatments

Behavioral: I-ACT

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT04108689

I-ACT-Hockey

Details and patient eligibility

About

The aim of this study is to investigate whether an internet-based psychological training program will enhance performance and affect mental health related factors in elite ice hockey players. The psychological training program is based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a modern form of Cognitive Behavior Therapy, and is delivered over the internet (hence called "I-ACT"). Elite players in Sweden will be invited before the 2019/2020 season. I-ACT will start for enrolled participants during the first week of October 2019 (30th September- 2nd October depending on the schedule of the particular league; approximately 5 games have then been played in the leagues eligible for participation). I-ACT consists of seven weekly modules/chapters with ACT content and participants also have a psychological trainer in the program that they can contact via a chat function on the web platform. Participants will have completed I-ACT the 17th of November 2019. When I-ACT starts in October, other eligible players will have the opportunity to leave their notice of interest for participation in the study and to take part of I-ACT in a later stage of the season. This concurrent "waiting list" is not a waiting list control group in any sense. It only gives further eligible players the opportunity to enroll in the study for a consecutive start of the psychological training program. I-ACT will start for this second group of players during the last week in november (25th November 2019), and finish I-ACT the 12th January 2020. These two consecutive groups of I-ACT participants will be considered the experimental group. However, due to the length of the ice hockey season the second group will only have follow-up measurements at 1 month for female players (the women's league ends in February 2020) and 2 months for male players (the men's leagues ends in March 2020). Official statistics will be collected from the leagues and enrolled participants will be compared to non-participant players in the leagues to compare the effectiveness of I-ACT on ice hockey performance. Only within-group comparisons will be made for secondary outcome measures.

Enrollment

57 patients

Sex

All

Ages

15+ years old

Volunteers

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Playing ice hockey on elite level in any of the following leagues: Svenska damhockeyligan (SDHL, the Swedish premier ice hockey league for women), Svenska hockeyligan (SHL, the Swedish premier ice hockey league for men), Hockeyallsvenskan (the Swedish second highest league in ice hockey for men).

Exclusion criteria