Student-Athlete Mental Health, Help-Seeking, and Service Utilization: Implications for a Multi-Tiered, Public Health Approach on College Campuses

ABSTRACT

Student-athletes experience unique stressors and challenges that impact both their mental health and athletic performance. The current study sought to explore these stressors and challenges; examine how they relate to help-seeking, service access, and utilization; and recommend what colleges and universities can do to better support the mental health of student-athletes. Three focus groups were conducted with NCAA Division I student-athletes in upstate New York between November 2019 and October 2020. Student-athletes described significant stress juggling athletic, academic, and social demands while maintaining a performance level that met the expectations of their coaches and themselves. Student-athletes were also impacted by an unhealthy athletic culture and team environment, specific higher-risk transition periods, and inaccurate beliefs about student-athletes held by their non-athlete peers. While many athletes reported struggling with their mental health, they felt either unable or unwilling to seek help due to stigma, how it would appear to their coaches, the hours and location of the counseling center, and previous poor experiences accessing and utilizing services. The authors present a set of multi-tiered recommendations to help increase awareness, access to, and utilization of both on- and off-campus mental health services, resources, and supports.

KEYWORDS:

• Student-athletes
• mental health
• college and university athletics
• college counseling centers
• college mental health

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge Monroe Marshall, MPH, Gabrielle Ferrara, MPH, and Zachary Robbiano, MD for their contribution in participant recruitment, focus group facilitation, transcription, and data analysis and the campus counseling center directors and staff, coaches, professors, and student-athlete support staff for their assistance with participant recruitment. A special thank you goes to the student-athletes who participated in our study and shared their experiences, struggles, and suggestions in the hopes of making college athletics a better experience for future generations of student-athletes.

Disclosure statement

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