(PS5-D97) Evaluation of Mental Health Screeners in College Students and College Student Athletes

Introduction: Mental health problems are highly prevalent in college-aged populations. College student athletes additionally experience unique factors to those of being a traditional college student (e.g., competition pressures, training, and travel demands) that may exacerbate sleep and mental health difficulties. Despite this, little empirical attention has been given to the evaluation of mental health between college students and college student athletes. This study provides a comparison of responses on screeners for twelve mental health domains between college student athletes and their non-athlete counterparts.

Methods: College student athletes (n = 399) and college students (n = 412) at a Southwestern U.S. University completed self-report questionnaires assessing twelve mental health domains during Fall 2020: anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, sleep difficulty, alcohol use, drug use, disordered eating, attention-deficit/hyperactivity, bipolar spectrum, posttraumatic stress, excessive gambling, and psychosis. Severity within each mental health domain was compared between groups using independent samples t-tests.

Results: Results revealed significantly higher mean scores (all comparisons p < .001, equal variances not assumed) for college students (vs. college student athletes) on all twelve mental health domains with small to large effect sizes.

Anxiety (t = 18.46; Cohen’s d = 1.29), depression (t = 19.20; Cohen’s d = 1.34), suicidal ideation (t = 7.90; Cohen’s d = 0.55), sleep difficulty (t = 9.18; Cohen’s d = 0.65), alcohol use (t = 7.68; Cohen’s d = 0.54), drug use (t = 7.43; Cohen’s d = 0.52), disordered eating (t = 17.41; Cohen’s d = 1.22), attention-deficit/hyperactivity (t = 15.62; Cohen’s d = 1.09), bipolar spectrum (t = 17.62; Cohen’s d = 1.24), posttraumatic stress( t = 7.73; Cohen’s d = 0.55), excessive gambling (t = 3.49; Cohen’s d = 0.25), and psychosis (t = 14.01; Cohen’s d = 0.99).



Conclusion: College students reported higher scores compared to student athletes on all twelve mental health domains assessed. Under reporting for concussions is common in college student athletes, a practice which may generalize to other health domains, such as mental health symptomology. Limitations of this study include lack of assessment of social desirability and validity to determine whether this plays a role in underreporting mental health symptomology in student athletes.