The Mental Health of Sporting Officials: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

The mental health of participants in sport has attracted increasing focus within research, practice, and policy. While mental health in sports has received increased attention, the mental health of sporting officials-such as judges, referees, and umpires-remains significantly under-researched compared with athletes. To our knowledge, there are no systematic reviews and meta-analyses that have synthesised available prevalence data of mental health symptoms and disorders in sporting officials. In addition, while previous reviews have provided a broad overview of risk and protective factors in relation to overall mental health, links between identified factors and specific mental health and well-being outcomes have not been explored. Therefore, this study aimed to systematically review and analyse the prevalence rates of mental health symptoms and disorders (e.g., depression and anxiety) among sporting officials and identify specific risk and protective factors influencing sporting officials' mental health and/or psychological well-being.

Relevant studies were retrieved from SCOPUS, Web of Science, SPORTDiscus and PsycINFO up until July 2025. Prevalence rates of specific mental health outcomes (i.e. anxiety and depressive symptoms) were meta-analysed.

A total of 26 studies were included. Meta-analyses comprising 2797 sporting officials showed that the pooled proportion of elevated anxiety symptoms was 19.1% (95% CI 13.4-27, I² = 94.1%) and 20.6% (95% CI 12.4-32.3, I² = 97.3%) for elevated symptoms of depression. Sport-environmental risk factors were identified in 70% of the studies (k = 19) (e.g., levels of professional experience, environment around matches, experiences of abuse), while 48% of studies (k = 13) examined personal risk factors (e.g., age, sex, injury). A total of 37% of studies (k = 10) examined sport-environmental protective factors (e.g., years of officiating experience, level of officiating, hours and frequency of officiating), while 33% of studies (k = 9) investigated personal protective factors (e.g., emotional intelligence, feelings of competence, age, sex).

The results suggest that targeting change at various levels of the sport ecosystem may help foster and promote positive mental health outcomes among sporting officials. The findings of this review suggest that strategies tailored to officials could include age/level of experience-specific support interventions and creating organisational cultures that prioritise mental health outcomes.