New Article About Student-Athlete Mental Health

I am excited to have another article published! This one is in the College Student Affairs Journal which is published by the Southern Association for College Student Affairs. This article is co-authored with my colleague, Dr. Shelley Price-Williams (University of Northern Iowa), and one of my former graduate students, Brittany McCarthy (University of Louisville).

We conducted a phenomenological qualitative study of Division I college student-athletes to explore the ways in which they navigated available mental health supports. The findings suggest that Division I college student athletes were prompted to seek informal supports from athletic trainers and other entry level staff such as graduate assistants. They did not seek more formal supports because of fear of stigma, vulnerability, or “weakness” as nonacceptance of professional counseling. For example, they several participants believed that being seen going to the counseling center on campus would change the perception of their teammates or cost of them playing time from their coach. We offer implications for practice for the support of student-athlete mental health, including educational programming and collaborative efforts with university counseling services.

A copy of the article is available here.