Lifeguard Performance Skills: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Drowning is one of the leading causes of death worldwide and lifeguards’ action can be regarded as a significant contribution to change that reality. In this regard, the purpose of this systematic review was to identify factors associated with lifeguards’ performance. After extensive research on PsycArticles, PsicBooks, PsycInfo, SportDiscus, Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus and SportDiscus databases, containing the keywords “lifeguard” AND “performance”, “lifeguard” AND “skills” and “lifeguard” AND “drowning”, we obtained 429 research articles. After eliminating duplicates, excluding those that had no relevance to the study, and screening against set criteria, a total of five articles were fully reviewed. Four quantitative studies and one qualitative study were included in the present review. An analysis of the data was carried out and the findings indicated that there are determining factors for the successful performance of the lifeguard’s activity. Results indicate that factors related to the physical, technical, and psychological components are essential for an improved lifeguard’s performance. The analysis of the data also highlights the lack of studies related to behavioural competencies.