Sport mental health continuum in young Brazilian athletes: adaptation and psychometric properties

Instruments used to assess the mental well-being of young athletes in Brazil are scarce. Therefore, the present study aimed to translate, cross-culturally adapt for young athletes, and gather evidence of validity for the Sport Mental Health-Short Form (S-MHC) for use in Brazilian Portuguese. The research was conducted in five stages: translation, synthesis, back-translation, expert review, and validation of the psychometric properties. For validation, 246 young athletes of both genders (88 females, 35.8%), aged between 12 and 18 years (14.5 ± 1.9 years), were recruited. Psychometric methods were employed to confirm and validate the translated and adapted versions of the S-MHC for young athletes, including internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha and McDonald's omega, composite reliability, Item Characteristic Curve (ICC) using Item Response Theory (IRT), and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Two structures were tested, with Model 1 loading the 14 items of the translated version of the S-MHC into a single latent factor and Model 2 loading the items into three factors related to emotional, social, and psychological sport well-being. Both models showed good validity, consistency, and reliability measures and can be used to investigate the sport well-being of young athletes. It was concluded that the translated version of the S-MHC in Brazilian Portuguese can be used to assess the sport well-being of young athletes in Brazil. Model 2 structure is recommended to observe the different nuances of emotional, social, and psychological well-being.