Exploring Mental Health and Illness in the UK Sports Coaching Workforce
Open accessAbstract
There is growing international concern about the mental health of those who work in sport, including coaches. However, we currently know little about the prevalence of mental illness and the experience of mental health among coaches, and their perceptions and use of workplace mental health support services. Little is also known about coaches’ disclosure of mental illness to, and seeking help from, work colleagues. We explore these issues using data from 202 coaches who responded to the first United Kingdom survey of mental health in the sport and physical activity workforce. In total, 55% of coaches reported having ever experienced a mental illness, and 44% currently did, with coaches in grassroots/community settings being most likely to experience mental illness. Depression and anxiety were the most commonly reported conditions and many coaches preferred to access mental health support outside of the organisation for whom they worked or volunteered, with decisions to seek help from others in the workplace being shaped by complex organisational and personal considerations. The findings suggest there is an important public health challenge which needs to be met among coaches, so that we can better address a question of fundamental importance: ‘who is looking after the people looking after the people’?
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Nine studies examined the prevalence of mental ill-health amongst general elite-level coaching populations.
“Nine studies (21.4%) [11, 12, 81, 93, 96, 99, 111–113] also examined the prevalence of mental ill-health amongst general elite-level coaching populations”
From The Mental Health of Elite-Level Coaches: A Systematic Scoping Review (2024) · cites this paper as [113]
The Results report mental-illness prevalence among UK coaches, and the Recruitment and Sample section includes coaches in high-performance sport. But the study covers coaches across all levels: only 17% worked in high-performance sport, so describing its population as generally elite-level overstates its scope. The count of nine studies is not a finding attributed to this individual paper. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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Frost, J., Walton, C. C., Purcell, R., Fisher, K., Gwyther, K., Kocherginsky, M., & Rice, S. M. (2024) · Figshare · doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.25203736
Additional file 4 of The Mental Health of Elite-Level Coaches: A Systematic Scoping Review
Frost, J., Walton, C. C., Purcell, R., Fisher, K., Gwyther, K., Kocherginsky, M., & Rice, S. M. (2024) · Figshare · doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.26679632
Additional file 6 of The Mental Health of Elite-Level Coaches: A Systematic Scoping Review
Frost, J., Walton, C. C., Purcell, R., Fisher, K., Gwyther, K., Kocherginsky, M., & Rice, S. M. (2024) · Figshare · doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.26679638
Additional file 1 of The Mental Health of Elite-Level Coaches: A Systematic Scoping Review
Frost, J., Walton, C. C., Purcell, R., Fisher, K., Gwyther, K., Kocherginsky, M., & Rice, S. M. (2024) · Figshare · doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.25203625
Additional file 3 of The Mental Health of Elite-Level Coaches: A Systematic Scoping Review
Frost, J., Walton, C. C., Purcell, R., Fisher, K., Gwyther, K., Kocherginsky, M., & Rice, S. M. (2024) · Figshare · doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.26679629
Additional file 5 of The Mental Health of Elite-Level Coaches: A Systematic Scoping Review
Frost, J., Walton, C. C., Purcell, R., Fisher, K., Gwyther, K., Kocherginsky, M., & Rice, S. M. (2024) · Figshare · doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.26679635
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- Authors
- Smith, A., Haycock, D., Jones, J., Greenough, K., Wilcock, R., & Braid, I.
- Affiliations
- Edge Hill University (GB)
- Thrive Approach, The Quadrangle, 1 Seale Hayne, Howton Road, Newton Abbot TQ12 6NQ, UK
- University of Sussex (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Smith, Andy
- Venue
- International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2020-12-13
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 24
- Pages
- 9332
- ISSN
- 1660-4601 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7764556
- OpenAlex
- W3110725368
- Cited by
- 40
- References
- 39
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 2
- FWCI
- 5.47
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Edge Hill University Research Information Repository (Edge Hill University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Workplace Health and Well-being
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Sport Psychology and Performance
- Keywords
- mental health, mental illness, sports coaches, depression, anxiety, help-seeking, mental health disclosure, workplace mental health support, United Kingdom
- MeSH terms
- Mentoring, Workforce, Female, United Kingdom, Humans, Male, Mental Health, Sports
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