It is known that college student-athletes at all levels face an immense amount of pressure. Pressure from peers, school, parents, financial concerns, time management, and internal pressure. In the past two decades, there has been a dramatic rise in mental health challenges for college students. This study focuses more specifically on college athletes. In a recent study, the NCAA found that almost 20,000 student-athletes in the United States reported depression and anxiety. Student-athletes report not only higher levels of depression and anxiety than non-athlete students, but student-athletes also report higher levels of substance abuse.
An online survey was administered to student-athletes. These students’ athletes were scattered across six colleges in the Midwest. Participant criteria required the student to be 18 years or older, enrolled full-time in school, and a member of one or more varsity athletic teams. The total sample consisted of 188 students. The survey first asked questions related to demographic information and then assessed copying strategies, substance use, the measure of stress, athletics-related anxiety, and perceived control of athletics-related stress. These results showed that 78 participants (41.5%) showed patterns of problematic substance use, 44 participants (23.4%) reported binge drinking, and 35 participants (18.6%) reported using marijuana in the past year. 22.9% reported they did use drugs or alcohol to cope a little bit or a medium amount of time.
Of all the coping strategies assessed, substance coping was the second least endorsed strategy, this could be due to social desirability bias. The study concluded that those who identified as a man and higher perceived stress were associated with higher substance use coping. Higher behavioral disengagement coping, higher substance use coping, and lower religious coping were related to greater binge drinking and substance-related risk behaviors. Coping-focused interventions have a great chance of reducing problematic substance use and enhancing problem-solving for other stressor common among college athletes.
Takeaway: Student-Athletes report higher levels of depression and anxiety due to the immense amount of pressure they are under, coping-focused interventions could be key to reducing problematic substance use.