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Exploring Mental Health and Illness in the UK Sports Coaching Workforce

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 s...

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Autores principales: Smith, Andy, Haycock, David, Jones, Jon, Greenough, Kenny, Wilcock, Rachel, Braid, Ian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7764556/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33322222
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17249332
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author Smith, Andy
Haycock, David
Jones, Jon
Greenough, Kenny
Wilcock, Rachel
Braid, Ian
author_facet Smith, Andy
Haycock, David
Jones, Jon
Greenough, Kenny
Wilcock, Rachel
Braid, Ian
author_sort Smith, Andy
collection PubMed
description 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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spelling pubmed-77645562020-12-27 Exploring Mental Health and Illness in the UK Sports Coaching Workforce Smith, Andy Haycock, David Jones, Jon Greenough, Kenny Wilcock, Rachel Braid, Ian Int J Environ Res Public Health Article 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’? MDPI 2020-12-13 2020-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7764556/ /pubmed/33322222 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17249332 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Smith, Andy
Haycock, David
Jones, Jon
Greenough, Kenny
Wilcock, Rachel
Braid, Ian
Exploring Mental Health and Illness in the UK Sports Coaching Workforce
title Exploring Mental Health and Illness in the UK Sports Coaching Workforce
title_full Exploring Mental Health and Illness in the UK Sports Coaching Workforce
title_fullStr Exploring Mental Health and Illness in the UK Sports Coaching Workforce
title_full_unstemmed Exploring Mental Health and Illness in the UK Sports Coaching Workforce
title_short Exploring Mental Health and Illness in the UK Sports Coaching Workforce
title_sort exploring mental health and illness in the uk sports coaching workforce
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7764556/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33322222
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17249332
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