Supporting Young Elite Athletes With Mental Health Issues: Coaches’ Experience and Their Perceived Role

Lebrun, Florence, MacNamara, Aine, Collins, Dave and Rodgers, Sheelagh (2020) Supporting Young Elite Athletes With Mental Health Issues: Coaches’ Experience and Their Perceived Role. The Sport Psychologist, 34 . pp. 43-53. ISSN 0888-4781

[thumbnail of Author Accepted Manuscript]
Preview
PDF (Author Accepted Manuscript) - Accepted Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives.

380kB

Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1123/tsp.2019-0081

Abstract

This study explored talent-development coaches’ experiences of athletes having faced mental health issues (MHIs). A second objective was to allow participants to share their opinion on how sport environments could improve the support offered to coaches and athletes encountering MHIs. A thematic analysis was performed on 11 verbatim-transcribed interviews conducted with UK-based talent-development coaches. While monitoring and supporting their athletes’ performance and well-being were viewed as day-to-day practice, dealing with MHIs was, however, not considered part of their role for a variety of reasons. Findings also suggest that coaches need more suitable and context-specific knowledge and tools to appropriately respond to and support their athletes. Generating a better understanding of coaches’ perceived role, knowledge, and needs to adequately support their athletes suffering from MHIs is crucial for the design of sport-specific interventions and for the athletes themselves.


Repository Staff Only: item control page