Date Submitted
6-2-2025
Faculty Advisor
Sarah Getch
Abstract
The present study investigated adolescent athletic coaches’ perceptions of their ability to handle player mental health. The current study explored mental health training for coaches and their beliefs surrounding it, including potential deficits in contemporary mental health training opportunities. Seventy-seven individuals who identified as coaches working with individuals between 7th grade and 12th grade were recruited as participants. The 77 Participants were asked to answer up to 10 open-ended questions about mental health training, their experiences with mental health issues, and areas where they would like to receive more or less training. The survey was conducted online and sent to them via Facebook groups and message boards that contained adolescent athletic coaches, as this provides access to coaches on a national level. It was expected that coaches would describe their mental health training as being inadequate, having not worked with mental health enough to be confident in handling crises, and this hypothesis was only partially supported, where coaches did not have a standardized view on supporting player mental health. The hypotheses that many coaches would have ideas on how they would like to see mental health training expanded, and that coaches would recognize a range of possible roles in supporting player mental health, were both supported. Coaches had a range of desired mental health topics to address, including resilience, distress tolerance, and motivational interviewing. Coaches also described a range of perceived roles between active or passive descriptions.
