Research on "Mental Health Help-Seeking in Olympic-Level Coaches

Research on "Mental Health Help-Seeking in Olympic-Level Coaches

21/02/2024

 Research on "Mental Health Help-Seeking in Olympic-Level Coaches’ - Recruitment of coaches for the research

 

  1. Josh Frost is a PhD Researcher at the University of Melbourne and Orygen in Australia. His research aims to understand how elite-level coaches perceive and experience mental health worldwide. Insights that emerge may support the development of mental health frameworks and targeted interventions for the high-performance coaching community.
  2. The study titled ‘Mental Health Help-Seeking in Olympic-Level Coaches’ is funded by the IOC Olympic Studies Centre’s 2024 PhD Students and Early Career Academics Research Grant program
  3. This study aims to identify the facilitators and barriers of mental health help-seeking among Olympic-level coaches. Findings may be utilised to develop relevant and engaging help-seeking pathways to support the mental health of Olympic coaches.
  4. The inclusion criteria for Olympic coaches:
    1. Individuals who currently operate or have previously served as a coach that manages or leads athletes or teams to the Summer Olympics Games. This encompasses coaches who have prepared (including Paris 2024) or led an athlete or team to compete at any Olympic Games (coaches can be either active, no longer coaching at an Olympic-level or retired).
  5. The target sample size is between 20 and 30 Olympic-level coaches.
  6. Participants will be required to provide information at three separate stages for the online concept mapping study (approx. 20 mins in total). Participants will have a three-week window to input their responses at Stage 2 and 3.
    1. Stage 1 (Prior to the 18th of March 2024): Olympic coaches will be invited to complete a short online survey where they will be asked to provide their consent, complete the eligibility criteria and share basic details about their background (approx. 5 mins).
    2. Stage 2 (18th March 2024): Participants will be asked about their perceptions of the barriers and facilitators to mental health help-seeking on an online platform (Concept Systems Global) (approx. 5-10 mins).
    3. Stage 3 (22nd April 2024): Following this, participants will be asked to sort the statements generated in the previous stage into groups that share similar meanings, values and themes on the online platform. Coaches will then be asked to rate how important and realistic it would be to address each barrier and facilitator presented (approx. 10 mins).

 

All participants are reimbursed with an Amazon voucher worth AUD $50 for their involvement. The following link is where Olympic coaches can complete Stage 1 and sign up to the research project:  https://melbourneuni.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_em60cankk6hYxL0