Psychology of Health, Sport, and Exercise
A special issue of Healthcare (ISSN 2227-9032).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2026 | Viewed by 676
Special Issue Editors
Interests: sport and exercise psychology; health psychology; motivation; behavior change; doping; psychometry and data analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: sport psychology; exercise behavior; perfectionism; sport injury; sport performance; doping; mediation model; longitudinal study; exploratory structural equation modeling
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
As physical and mental health challenges evolve, there is a growing need for deeper insights into how psychological processes influence sports and exercise behaviors, health outcomes, and overall well-being. Health psychology provides valuable insights into the promotion and maintenance of health, the prevention and treatment of illness, and the understanding of mental and physical well-being and quality of life. Sport and exercise have been identified as key strategies to mitigate these issues. Indeed, research in sport and exercise psychology is widely considered necessary to identify the psychological factors affecting not only athletic and exercise participation, but also overall health.
This Special Issue titled “Psychology of Health, Sport, and Exercise” aims to bring together scientific contributions of these areas from a psychological viewpoint, exploring the factors that shape human behaviors related to general health, well-being, and quality of life, covering the promotion of the mental health benefits of exercise from socio-cognitive, motivational, or personality perspectives.
We are pleased to invite submissions addressing the present topics related to different non-clinical target populations: the role of psychology in promoting healthy behaviors; the mental health benefits of exercise and physical activity; motivation and behavior change in exercise and physical activity and their impacts on health outcomes; the perception of effort, mental, and physical fatigue during physical or exercise activity; psychological resilience, burnout, and stress in sport and exercise contexts; psychological factors in injury prevention, rehabilitation, and recovery; and the role of personality in physical activity decision-making and health promotion. Further topics are welcome.
In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:
- Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of existing psychological contributions in these fields.
- Longitudinal and cross-sectional quantitative designs.
- Interventional and case studies.
- Psychometric research measuring characteristics and phenomena in health, sport, and exercise contexts.
- Validation studies of existing psychological assessment measures.
We look forward to receiving your contributions.
Dr. Federica Galli
Dr. Alessandra De Maria
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- health psychology
- well-being
- quality of life
- sport and exercise psychology
- physical activity
- mental resilience
- coping strategies
- sport injury
- self-determination theory
- exercise behavior
- mental health
- personality
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