Research Highlights Gaps in Support for Athlete Mental Health, Emphasizing the Role of Coaches

A recent study published in BMJ Open, led by researchers at the University of Birmingham, sheds light on significant gaps in current research regarding mental health support for athletes. While there has been growing interest in how athletes seek help for mental health issues, most studies have focused on formal sources such as psychologists and counselors, neglecting the crucial role that semi-formal support systems like coaches and academic advisors play. This oversight is particularly concerning because many athletes often turn to coaches for help despite stigma and fears of deselection. The review of 104 studies from around the world indicates that although mental health concerns are common among athletes, there are persistent sport-specific barriers to seeking help, which are not fully understood or addressed.

Kirsty Brown, a Ph.D. student and the lead researcher, emphasized that understanding athletes' attitudes towards seeking support and their access to different types of help is vital. Her team found that while attitudes towards seeking help have been frequently studied (in 79% of papers), access to support remains underexplored, appearing in less than a third of the research. Furthermore, there is a notable lack of investigation into how athletes from lower-income and non-Western backgrounds experience these issues, where cultural and structural obstacles may differ.

A key insight from the study is the urgent need to examine semi-formal support networks more thoroughly. Coaches, often the first point of contact for athletes, could influence their willingness to seek help, yet this area remains under-researched with only 2% of studies focusing specifically on this support type. The researchers suggest that future studies should adopt standardized measures and apply established psychological frameworks to better understand help-seeking behaviors.

Professor Jennifer Cumming highlighted the importance of building a strong evidence base to develop effective support models tailored to athletes’ needs. Overall, this research underscores the importance of broadening the scope of athlete mental health research to include non-traditional, semi-formal sources of support, which could be pivotal in reducing stigma and improving access to care.