Prevalence of mental health concerns among young adults is high and continues to increase. As a specific subset of young adults, NCAA student-athletes seem to experience these concerns at a similar or greater prevalence than their non-athlete, age-matched peers. Despite the number of college student-athletes who are experiencing mental health concerns, understanding how mental health impacts sport performance has not been robustly studied and has not included the diversity of identities present in the athlete population. Thus, I explored the beliefs of 266 college student-athletes who represented diverse identities and sports regarding how mental health impacts sport performance. Responses were collected using an on-line survey and analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Overall, as well as by gender, race/ethnicity, and sport type, 96.4% to 100.0% of participants believed that mental health impacts sport performance. From thematic analysis emerged three themes and various subthemes: (a) cognitive disruptions (concentration, confidence, self-talk, motivation, mindset, and decision-making), (b) the stress of being a student-athlete (life impact sport, team factors, sport impacts mental health), and (c) a mind-body connection (mind correlates with body, and mental health symptoms impact sport performance). Post-hoc cluster analysis by demographic and sport-type variables did not reveal clustering; these variables were represented consistently across subthemes. The universality of endorsement and consistent spread of identities across subthemes represent novel findings from which further exploration of the mental health-sport performance connection is warranted.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc1833440 |
| Date | 08 1900 |
| Creators | Beebe, Kelzie E. |
| Contributors | Petrie, Trent A., Jones, Martinique, Watkins, Clifton E. |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | iv, 40 pages, Text |
| Rights | Public, Beebe, Kelzie E, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved. |
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