Site icon Wellness Sync

SEC emphasizes mental health with help of survey as pressures on student-athletes increase

SEC emphasizes mental health with help of survey as pressures on student-athletes increase

Between NIL, sports betting and social media, NCAA student-athletes have arguably never been under more pressure. SEC chief medical officer Dr. Katie O’Neal acknowledged this, which is why the conference has spent the past year investigating and centering the mental health of its student-athletes.

O’Neal presented at SEC Media Days Wednesday to provide updates on the conference’s health and safety initiatives, primarily the results of a mental health survey conducted last fall.

“We do believe that mental health is the number one priority of our healthcare specialties right now,” she said.

Even among heavyweights, Texas Longhorns’ presence reigns supreme at first SEC Media Days

Texas College Sports

Get the latest college sports news, scores and analysis.

The survey was first tested with student-athlete leadership groups before being sent to all athletes in September. Contrary to expectations, O’Neal said, the survey was not interested in the student-athletes’ own mental health, but rather their perceptions of their team’s mental health, the resources available to them and “whether or not they thought mental health was as important as we thought it was.”

The results indicated that student-athletes thought the mental health of their team and teammates was generally good and that they were aware of resources available to them. However, a surprising finding was that, to be made aware of resources, they preferred to be contacted in person.

O’Neal noted that the SEC had used social media, message boards and other digital means to reach student-athletes about mental health, a trend found in education at large. The UT Board of Regents recently approved $16.5 million to tackle student mental health challenges, including the launch of a 24/7 mental health crisis line and a free behavioral health app for students across all 14 UT institutions. Meanwhile, the Texas Child Health Access Through Telemedicine program provides virtual mental health support with a licensed counselor to any public K-12 school district that wants it.

Digital mental health interventions are useful for their 24/7 availability, serving as a stepping stone between those struggling and seeking help, and for the anonymity they can provide, which helps overcome the shame barrier often associated with seeking mental help. Still, they cannot replace a personal connection.

“When [student-athletes] talk about healthcare issues, and especially mental health, they want it to be a personal conversation, and the people they most trusted were their athletic trainers and their healthcare professionals in school,” O’Neal said, referring to the survey’s findings.

“So that was something really good that we could feed back to our schools to say, ‘You can continue to push the messaging boards and you can continue to push your online content, but what they really want is a personal conversation in the training room,’” she said.

The SEC’s focus on mental health comes with student-athletes dealing with more pressure than ever. With social media, student-athletes have become public figures in a way they were not before, and their digital availability can make them subject to unprecedented scrutiny and vitriol. Even more, since the legalization of sports betting nationally in 2018, student-athletes across the NCAA have reported receiving social media abuse, including threats of violence, from aggrieved bettors, as detailed by ESPN. The NCAA reported in May that one in three high-profile athletes have received abusive messages from someone with a betting interest.

“Our student athletes talk a lot about dealing with social media in general and how to cope with the onslaught of feedback that they get,” O’Neal said. “We’re keeping our eyes on all of the pressures that they’re facing, especially in this last critical year, and how that’s going to affect our mental health of our student athletes.”

O’Neal addressed the issue of sports betting. Though it hasn’t come up in the mental health feedback the SEC has gotten, she knows that, “the trickle down effect of anything that’s new and upcoming is usually several years in the making before we start to see the end effects of those things.”

Will Oklahoma’s Big 12 success translate to SEC? New gauntlet is Sooners’ best litmus test

At the end of the day, though, an athlete’s performance is their biggest stressor, she said, and so the conference is invested in making that performance as safe as possible. That can be through ensuring programs have adequate processes and procedures like rehab and emergency response, or educating student-athletes on how to make informed medical decisions. What matters most is that the conference is united in its goals and initiatives to address these concerns.

“What we know is that student-athlete have told us, ‘The thing that affects me most from a mental health perspective is the load that I have to put on me every day and how I perform,’” she said. “And so if we want them to in any way, make advances in their daily health, it’s going to be through improving performance.”

Find more college sports coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.

link

Exit mobile version