Call-to-action: the need for a mental health research agenda for sports match officials

ABSTRACT

Little research has examined the mental health symptoms and disorders of sports match officials, in any sport, anywhere in the world. This lack of research has created a deficit of mental health knowledge for sports match officials and prevented the design, testing, and dissemination of evidence-based mental health interventions. The purposes of this paper are to briefly outline the limited research that does exist on the mental health symptoms and disorders of sports match officials and to establish a research agenda that begins to build an evidence-base for future multidisciplinary research and practice. Only through collaborative efforts, that aim to help both individuals and organizations, can poor mental health in this population be addressed.

KEYWORDS:

• Mental health
• mental disorder
• research methods
• referee
• match official

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).