Can a Picture Speak a Thousand Words? A Longitudinal Photo-Elicitation Exploration of Football Coaches’ Well-Being Experiences and Sensemaking

Objectives: Well-being is multifaceted, encompassing biopsychosocial, temporal, and contextual aspects. Exploring the person-context interaction of well-being and how temporality shapes it is crucial due to its dynamic nature. Men’s professional football, characterized as volatile and demanding, can impede coaches’ well-being as its masculine culture often leads coaches to suppress emotive behaviours, leading to inhibited health-related concerns. Given these challenges, the objective of the study was to employ a photo-elicitation approach to evoke richer discussions and capture the temporal nature of football coaches’ well-being throughout a competitive season. Methods: Eight football coaches (7 male, 1 female) from English Premier League and Football League clubs were interviewed at four key timepoints during the 2022-2023 season. A combined longitudinal interpretative phenomenological analysis (LIPA) and photo-elicitation approach was used to understand their well-being experiences. Coaches provided their own images to facilitate collaborative interpretations, offering an insider perspective on their lives. To accommodate their busy schedules, 32 online interviews were conducted, resulting in 84 images analysed using LIPA and a bioecological theoretical lens. Findings: Well-being experiences fluctuated with socio-contextual and seasonal changes. Coaches’ reflections, prompted by sourced images, highlighted aspects of their lives often overlooked. Three themes emerged: (i) Striving to be present and true to self; (ii) Well-being sensemaking shaped by time; (iii) Navigating the (in)stability of football coaching and life. Authenticity and a ‘third space’ outside work and home were crucial for well-being. Familial interactions mediated well-being and performance. Participation in the study itself served as a well-being management tool, prompting behavioural changes. Conclusion: The study highlighted the reciprocal nature of well-being shaped by socio-contextual interactions over time. Using LIPA and photo-elicitation enhanced coaches’ understanding and management of well-being. The methodology’s benefits suggest that researchers and practitioners could adopt photo-elicitation to explore and support well-being, facilitating the interpretation of complex experiences.