The Effects of Recreational and Sports Activities on Psychological Status in Young People Aged 11-13 Years

This study was conducted to investigate the depressive state and loneliness in a total of 219 male adolescents between the ages 11 and 13 who were registered at the summer school of the Vezirköprü Provincial Directorate of Youth Services and Sports based on whether or not they participated in recreational and sports activities during the summer holiday. One hundred and fifteen of the participants participated in recreational and sports activities organized during the summer, while 104 did not. Information about the depressive states of the participants was collected via the Beck Depression Scale, while information about their loneliness was collected with the UCLA Loneliness Scale. High total scores on both scales indicated that depression and loneliness levels were high. The Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficient was calculated to determine the reliability of the answers given by the participants to the items of Beck Depression Scale and UCLA-LS. In the statistical assessment of the research results, it was found that the error terms were not normally distributed (P