Family contributions to sport performance and their utility in predicting appropriate referrals to mental health optimization programmes

Abstract

Limited research has examined the contributions of sport-specific family relationship problems to athlete mental health. In the current study we examined the extent to which collegiate athletes' family problems (as measured by the Student Athlete Relationship Instrument factors, SARI) predict athletes' general mental health distress and specific mental health symptoms that are relatively common in athletes (i.e. depression, anxiety, and drug and alcohol use). The study included 85 collegiate athletes (intramural, n = 26; club sport, n = 12; NCAA Division I, n = 47). We hypothesized that both general mental health distress and commonly evidenced mental health symptoms would be predicted by athletes' responses to the SARI factors (Poor Relationship and Lack of Support, General Pressure, Pressure to Quit or Continue Unsafely, Embarrassing Comments, and Negative Attitude). Results indicated that all of the aforementioned SARI factors predicted athletes' ratings of depression and general mental health distress levels. Only the General Pressure SARI factor predicted athletes' anxiety and drug use. Alcohol use was not predicted by any of the SARI factors. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses indicated that sport-specific problems in family relationships provided a good classification of athletes at risk for general mental health distress, depression, and anxiety. Practice implications are discussed in light of the results.

Preliminary psychometric validation of a brief screening tool for athlete mental health among male elite athletes: the Athlete Psychological Strain Questionnaire

“…Interest in the domain of elite athlete mental health is reflected in recent consensus statements outlining mental health symptom identification and management in sports-specific and elite environments (Henriksen et al, 2019;Moesch et al, 2018;Reardon et al, 2019). There is also growing interest in the development of athlete-specific screening and identification processes for the early identification of mental health problems in this population (Donohue et al, 2019;Hussey, Donohue, Barchard, & Allen, 2019). While a number of athlete mental health-related measures currently exist, they are relatively lengthy.…”

A comprehensive examination of factors impacting collegiate athletes' utilization of psychological assessment and intervention services

“…We believe the implementation of cost‐effective mental health awareness programs that incorporate the internet (Gulliver et al, 2012a; van Raalte et al, 2015) and video‐based technologies (Kern et al, 2017) may be especially promising in this regard. Consistent with these efforts, formalized procedures have been disseminated to assist implementation of mental health screening procedures in NCAA athletes (Tomalski et al, 2019) and sport specific screens have been validated to accurately identify and predict appropriate mental healthcare referrals in collegiate (Donohue et al, 2019; Hussey et al, 2019) and professional athletes (Donohue et al, 2018b; Rice et al, 2019). This is important because the results suggest collegiate athletes who evidence relatively high mental health symptom severity may be particularly motivated to pursue psychological assessment; a finding that is consistent with previous studies involving collegiate students from the general population (American College Health Association, 2009; Blanco et al, 2008; Eisenberg et al, 2011).…”

International consensus statement on the psychosocial and policy-related approaches to mental health awareness programmes in sport

“…Fifth, those involved in mental health service provision need to consider contextual (eg, culture, family, age, gender) and operational factors (eg, feasibility, length of time, service user experience), without which evidence-based programmes23 may not be sustainable or effective. For instance, recent evidence26 indicates that collegiate athletes’ family problems may predispose them to mental health distress, and therefore serve as a good screening method to assist referrals.…”