Mental health in individual versus team sports

Abstract

Across all sports, there has been increasing realization that mental health symptoms and disorders in athletes are common. More specifically, there has been increasing study of differences in mental health between individual and team sport athletes. However, this topic is still under-developed, and no comprehensive review on the topic has been undertaken. This manuscript aims to provide a narrative review of mental health symptoms and disorders, spanning depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and substance use and other addictive disorders, in individual versus team sports. Findings revealed that individual sports may be associated with relatively more negative mental health than team sports. This includes depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and concepts related to exercise addiction. Substance misuse and use disorders may be an exception to this pattern, with team sport athletes exhibiting higher rates of problematic alcohol use, use of certain forms of nicotine, and possibly use of illicit substances such as marijuana. Reasons for the greater overall mental health risk in individual versus team sports may include relatively more negative self-attribution after failure and less social cohesion/support. Steps can be taken to improve the sporting environment for all athletes—across individual and team sports—in order to optimize mental health outcomes.