Psychology and Mental Health Research in Dance: A Scoping Review

The purpose of this scoping review was to provide a comprehensive overview of mental health and psychology research in dance by identifying common topics, summarizing demographic and contextual characteristics, and examining where first-generation knowledge is published through the lens of dance educators and knowledge translation. We conducted a comprehensive search for relevant literature in journals and dissertations and used descriptive statistics and content analysis to describe the scope of the field. A total of 524 sources were included. The most common research topic was eating disorders/disordered eating. The most represented populations were ballet dancers, advanced and professional dancers, and early adults. Cross-sectional and descriptive study designs were most common, whereas applied research designs were less common. We highlight areas for further development in psychology and mental health research in dance including older and younger participants and intervention or community-based research designs.