The South African Journal of Psychiatry publishes topical content in psychiatry for clinical practice and academic pursuits, including work in the subspecialty areas of psychiatry.

Motivation is likely a pivotal factor contributing to sports participation. In India, because of the unsupportive sports/physical education environment, girls participate less in sports and other physical activities than boys. Therefore, embedding a planned healthy environment with good social support may maximize and, consequently, increase their participation in various sports and physical activities. Considering this unabated dialogue and assuming that motivation is a pivotal need for female sports participation, this study examined the differences in motivation to participate in sports among female adolescents across three age categories: early (11–14 years old), middle (15–18 years old), and late (19–21 years old) adolescence. A total of 528 female adolescents from Assam, India participated in the study. Participation in physical education courses was the criterion for the participants, and they were invited to complete the Participation Motivation Questionnaire. A factor analysis with direct oblimin rotation using the maximum likelihood extraction method yielded a 23-item, five-factor structure that exhibited moderate internal consistency. An ANOVA revealed significant differences across all three age categories regarding all the extracted factors. Moreover, t-tests of all sub-factors identified significant differences between the two achievement levels of district-level and inter-district-level athletes. This study provides sound psychometric and comparative results that are useful for education and formative reviews in applied settings and research purposes. It also serves as a measurement tool for embedding motivation to participate in physical activities and sports among female adolescents and the development of strategic ideas to assist female adolescents from less privileged areas to experience healthy growth and a healthy lifestyle.

The South African Journal of Psychiatry publishes topical content in psychiatry for clinical practice and academic pursuits, including work in the subspecialty areas of psychiatry.

This study aimed to examine the relationships between athletes' will-to-win, their self-esteem, and dispositional flow state by presenting a structural model of the relationships. Further, gender and competitive level group differences among adolescent athletes in India were explored. A purposive sample of 318 adolescent athletes (male: n = 188; female: n = 130) with a mean age of 16.10 ± 1.01 years, who participanted in basketball, football and volleyball competitions, completed the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Questionnaire, Will-to-Win Questionnaire and the Dispositional Flow Scale-2. Significant differences were found between the two competitive levels and gender groups. Players participating on Inter-state level had significantly higher self-esteem, will-to-win and dispositional flow (such as challenge skill balance, clear goals and concentration on the task at hand) than participants at Inter-district level. Male athletes had significantly higher self-esteem (p=.077) and dispositional flow (such as action awareness merging; p=.004), concentration, loss of self-consciousness (p=.050) and transformation of time (p=.001) than female athletes. A significant positive relationship was found between self-esteem, will-to-win and the dispositional flow subscales. Lastly, the CFA (path analysis) showed excellent model fit between Will-to-Win → Self-Esteem → Dispositional Flow. Athletes participating on higher competitive levels reported superior mean scores in five factors such as self-esteem (31.14 ± 6.77), will-to-win (10.24 ± 2.32), challenge skill balance (17.34 ± 2.17), action awareness merging (15.25 ± 2.99) and clear goals (16.48 ± 2.50). Male athletes had higher mean scores on self-esteem and dispositional flow state than female athletes. However, will-to-win did not show any significant gender difference. Additionally, the linear structural model of the relationship between will-to-win mediating selfesteem with dispositional flow provided excellent model fit.