Comparison of coaches' perceptions and officials guidance towards health promotion in French sport clubs: a mixed method study.
Despite the call to improve health promotion (HP) in sport clubs in the existing literature, little is known about sport clubs' organizational capacity. Grounded within the setting-based framework, this study compares HP activities and guidance among 10 football clubs. At least three grassroots coaches from each club (n = 68) completed the Health Promoting Sports Clubs scale to assess their perceptions of HP; an official (n = 10) was interviewed about club's activities and official's guidance provided to coaches. A concurrent embedded design with quantitative results guiding the qualitative analysis was used. Despite no significant differences regarding coaches' perceptions of HP between the 10 sport clubs, except for the policy dimension, officials' interviews revealed some contradictions. Sport participation was recognized as automatically promoting HP, meaning that sport practice entails many benefits, without questioning the nature of the activities. HP was considered as a secondary aim in regard to sport performance, leading to the lack of written policies, partnerships and sporadic HP activities. Future interventions should consider: (i) the creation of required policy and long-term vision; (ii) the link between HP and sport performance; (iii) the rootedness of sport clubs within their community and (iv) guidelines towards HP from sport federations.