Working With and Through Athletic Trainers to Meet Student-Athletes' Mental Performance and Mental Health Needs

Recently, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has placed more attention on the mental health of student-athletes because they are experiencing mental health challenges at a higher rate than their nonathlete peers. This led the NCAA to create a mental health initiative that encouraged athletic departments to hire a mental health professional to meet the psychological needs of student-athletes. Over the last 7 years, we have seen an increase in the number of psychological providers hired in NCAA Division I athletics to meet the varying needs of student-athletes. However, most universities are only hiring 1 professional to meet the mental health and mental performance needs of student-athletes. Mental health services focus on addressing pathological mental health concerns, whereas mental performance services are designed to assist student-athletes with performance-related challenges (eg, managing performance pressures). In addition to the mental health initiative, the NCAA Transformational Committee published a report that continued to emphasize the importance of meeting the mental health needs of student-athletes but did not acknowledge mental performance services as an essential resource. Therefore, student-athletes' mental performance needs may not be met. In this paper, we call on athletic trainers to assist in advocating for more education about the differences between services and for both mental performance and mental health services to be available to student-athletes. With athletic trainers often having strong relationships with student-athletes and sport-related administrators, foundational training competencies in both mental performance and mental health, and the desire to balance improving health and performance, they are in a unique position to advocate for better educational resources and the inclusion of both mental performance and mental health services to meet the varying psychological needs of student-athletes.