Latent profiles of pre-competition psychological states in young Chinese judo athletes: associations with depression and mental toughness.

BACKGROUND

Young judo athletes show highly heterogeneous pre-competition psychological states, yet prior variable-centered research has assumed a uniform linear "support-anxiety" relationship that masks individual differences. Using latent profile analysis, this study aimed to identify subgroups jointly defined by perceived social support and competitive state anxiety, examine unadjusted between-profile differences in depression and mental toughness, and investigate covariate-adjusted correlates of profile membership.

METHODS

A cross-sectional design was employed. A total of 222 young Chinese judo athletes were assessed using the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2), the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), and the Sports Mental Toughness Questionnaire (SMTQ). Standardized perceived social support and competitive state anxiety served as the indicator variables for latent profile analysis (LPA); the retained profile solution was selected by jointly considering the AIC, BIC, SABIC, entropy, and class proportions. Binary logistic regression was used to examine the covariate-adjusted associations of mental toughness and habitual stress with profile membership while controlling for age, sex, and history of acute sports injury. Independent-samples t-tests were used to examine unadjusted between-profile differences in depression and mental toughness.

RESULTS

A two-profile solution was retained after jointly considering information criteria, profile size, classification accuracy, parsimony, and substantive interpretability (entropy = 0.679). The Resource-Deprived profile comprised 36.5% of the sample, whereas the Supported-Vigilant profile comprised 63.5%. The Supported-Vigilant profile reported lower depression (p < 0.001) and higher mental toughness (p = 0.035). Mental toughness was associated with higher adjusted odds of Supported-Vigilant profile membership (OR = 1.34, 95% CI [1.01, 1.80], p = 0.047).

CONCLUSION

The retained profiles were distinguished primarily by jointly lower versus jointly higher levels of perceived social support and composite competitive state anxiety. In the Supported-Vigilant profile, higher composite competitive state anxiety coexisted with lower depression and higher mental toughness; however, the present findings do not establish that anxiety was facilitative or that social support buffered its effects. These findings suggest that pre-competition psychological work should assess anxiety intensity together with perceived support and broader psychological adjustment, rather than uniformly pursuing anxiety reduction, while giving particular attention to resource-deprived athletes.