Nur 826 - Depression Among Current and Former Athletes

Depression among Current and Former Athletes

Daniel Lising

NUR 826

February 29, 2016

Introduction

Depression affects 121 million people worldwide and 14.8 million American adults aged 18 years and older (Trevor, Weidauer, & Bryce, 2015). The prevalence of depression in college students may be as high a 22%. Collegiate student-athletes is a subset of the student population. Collegiate student-athletes represent a population with its own unique set of depression-linked stressors including coach and peer pressure, societal pressure, self-induced pressure, and professional sports aspiration, and injuries. (Trevor, et. al, 2015) This topic will explore depression among current and former/retired athletes.

Rational

A high school teacher spoke about injured/concussed athletes developing mental health symptoms; one of them being depression. After being intrigued, depression among athletes seemed like an important and interesting topic to research and explore the overall state of the research. According to (Weigand, Cohen, & Merenstein, 2013), research on depression, specifically among athletes has gained increasing public attention in recent years. The overall impact of depression among injured athletes is alarming due to the negative stigma associated with depression, which often leads to the disease being underdiagnosed in athletes who attempt to ignore the problem or simply cover it up (Weigand, et. al, 2013). The underreported nature of depression raises important questions. As a mental health nurse, what can they do about this population who has its own unique set of depression-linked stressors?

Analysis

A total of 7 research studies were located, ensuring that the research studies are within 5 years which provide latest research findings. All research studies are focused on current and former athletes, focusing primarily on high school athletes, collegiate student-athletes participating in various. In analyzing depression among this population, research studies seem to focus on adults who experience the highest amount of concussion and injuries that typically end their sporting career.

The first article’s title is Depression and Neurocognitive Performance After Concussion Among Male and Female High School and Collegiate Athletes. The purpose of that study is to examine the relationships of sport-related concussion with depression and neurocognitive performance and symptoms among athletes. The research design that was used is a two-year prospective design. There was a total of 75 participants diagnosed with concussion. The form of evaluation measures used is the beck depression inventory-II, which is a valid and reliable measure of depression symptoms that has 21 self-report questions. Athletes with concussion completed the BDI-II at 2 days, 5 to 7 days, and 20 to 14 days or until they were cleared to return from to play. From the data collected, they found that depression was elevated from baseline levels at 2 days, 7 days, and 14 days post-concussions for all participants. The finding suggests that cognitive depression may become relevant only when recovery time is prolonged and athletes begin to feel more frustrated and socially isolated (Kontos, Covassin, Elbin, & Parker, 2012).  The research revealed some gap areas and weaknesses. Using surveys and questionnaires may not be accurate due to the stigma associated with reporting depression Therefore, scores may not truly reflect the results of each study. Furthermore, this brings up the assumption that athletes were honest in completing these tests, which may skew the results. In terms of strengths, the use of surveys and questionnaires have all been proved to efficiently measure the presence and intensity of symptoms characteristics of depression (Kontos, et. al, 2012).  This means that assuming the participants are honest, the results will accurately measure their depressive symptoms.

The second article’s title is Susceptibility for Depression in Current and Retired Student Athletes. The purpose of the study is to explore depression among athletes who have graduated from college and retired from their sport after their college eligibility. The study hypothesized that a change in the former athlete's lifestyle would put them at an increased risk for depression. There was a total of 280 participants; 163 former student-athletes and 117 current student-athletes to correlate depression and retirement from their respective athletics. A cross-sectional survey was created on survey monkey and an e-mail was sent out to participants in the study. The standardized scale (Wakefield Depression Scale) was used to determine the participants' depression level. The data showed that current college students were significantly more depressed than former athletes (Weigand, Cohen, & Merenstein, 2013). The research revealed some gap areas and weaknesses. The possibility that depressed individuals not willing to participate in the survey is quite the limitation. Furthermore, the sports distribution was skewed towards two sports: football and baseball, which means that the huge amount of athletes on these rosters resulted in a great representation of sports that have more participants, while there was a lower number of responses from sports with fewer athletes (Weigand, et. al, 2013). In terms of strength, the researchers utilized a survey that could only be accessed through a secure link the participants emails and to be completed only once by each participant. This ensures that participants responded more honestly.

The third article’s title is Association between concussion and mental health in former collegiate athletes. The purpose of the study is to explore the association between recurrent concussion and depression in former collegiate athletes. The study used a cross-sectional design. 3,657 former athletes with at least one season of sports were given an invitation to complete an online self-administered questionnaire. The outcome measures of depression used a module from the Patient Health Questionnaire, a diagnostic tool used to screen and diagnose health disorders. Among 797 participants, 4.7% had moderate to severe depression. Although former athletes had a lower prevalence of depression compared to former NFL players (4.7% vs. 14.7%), the findings suggest that there is an evidence that links the risk of depression to self-reported concussion history in former athletes (Kerr, Evenson, Rosamond, Mihalik, Guskiewicz, 2014). The research revealed some gap areas and weaknesses. The small sample size represented a small portion of all former collegiate athletes in the U.S. However, a strength could also be noted in that the study provides estimates from a diverse population of former athletes. The direction of this research study should have additional prospective studies that better address causality. This includes an extensive history of concussion, as well as medical histories regarding diagnosis, treatment, and management of mental health issues. (Kerr, et. al, 2014)