Mental Health Prevalence in NCAA Division III Collegiate Athletes

Abstract

Stressors related to academic requisites, sport participation and pressure to perform may increase college athlete risk for mental health symptoms (Cox, Ross-Stewart, & Foltz, 2017; Sudano & Miles, 2017; Yang et al., 2007). The purpose of this study was to identify the level of clinically relevant self-reported mental health symptoms in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III athletes and variations based on sport participation (i.e., men’s or women’s athletics; team or individual sports) over a two-year period. A nonexperimental, trend study design was used. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, chi square test, and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) which used one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for follow-up procedures. A MANOVA revealed a significant interaction of gender and sport type for general symptoms [F(1, 564) = 9.583, p = .002] and depression [F(1, 564) = 6.945, p = .009] but not anxiety [F(1, 564) = 3.332, p = .068, ƞ2 = .006]. The project was able to describe mental health symptoms in a population that is not often included in the literature. Knowledge of collegiate athlete mental health prevalence is important because prevention and early intervention is a key component of community-based health programming.