Mental health in elite sports. A continuum of strategies that athletic trainers can use to support competitive athletes with psychological issues: a scoping review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: Athletes are at high risk of experiencing psychological distress. It is unclear if professionals in charge of competitive athletes' physical and psychological wellbeing are adequately trained to identify and manage psychological distress, despite many athletic trainers (ATs) reporting having held a position where it was necessary to counsel student-athletes on personal issues. However, ATs have also reported having received insufficient training to support athletes in the face of psychological distress. Objective: The present scoping review aims to identify, in scientific literature, how ATs can improve the psychological support provided to competitive athletes. Methods: This scoping review was carried out using a six-step process in accordance with the PRISMA-ScR guideline. The initial search, based on specific keywords related to ATs, athletes, strategies and mental health, identified a total of 1,204 articles. The research was conducted across 8 databases (APA PsycINFO, SPORTDiscuss, Google Scholar, Social Science Research Network-SSRN and others). The initial search, based on specific keywords related to ATs, athletes, strategies and mental health, identified a total of 1,204 articles. After removing duplicates, abstracts and titles were screened in accordance with the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Included articles were published between 2010 and 2024, written in English, on athletes aged 8-25 years, from Western cultures, participating in sport within a sport organization and presenting strategies that could assist ATs in the management of athletes with mental difficulties. The search yielded 22 articles that were relevant to the study. Results: Results of retained articles were separated into four themes: (1) training; (2) prevention; (3) intervention strategies; and (4) referral. Prevention involves implementing a set of measures aimed at avoiding or reducing the number and severity of psychological distress. Training helps fill gaps in the understanding and application of psychological interventions in sport. Intervention strategies allow professionals to intervene based on meeting the fundamental psychological needs of athletes. Finally, as soon as signs of psychological distress are identified, it is important to refer the athlete to a mental health professional in order to provide adequate support to athletes. Discussion and conclusion: Based on the results, two themes are most often reported, such as prevention and intervention strategies. Future research should explore the long-term impacts of these interventions implemented by ATs on athletes' mental wellbeing.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.008 | 0.025 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.013 | 0.009 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".