Sink or Swim? A survival analysis of sport dropout in Australian youth swimmers

Objectives To examine long‐term participation and dropout rates in Australian youth swimming using survival analyses and to determine whether multiple individual, socio‐demographic, and competition‐related factors influenced dropout. Design Retrospective cohort study of registration and competitive performance data. Methods Part 1—Registration data from N = 17 161 female (n = 9400) and male (n = 7761) New South Wales (NSW) swimmers aged 10‐15 years (inclusive). Part 2—Competition level involvement in a subsample of female (n = 1011) and male (n = 811) swimmers, aged 12‐15 years, was also examined. To determine dropout rates and influential factors, Kaplan‐Meier survival analyses supplemented by Cox regression were used. Results (1) Kaplan‐Meier analyses identified median sustained participation rates of four years (95% CI = 3.93‐4.06), with 15.9% maintaining participation over 10 years. Cox regressions identified age‐group was associated with dropout (P