Mental health interventions in sport: evidence from systematic reviews, consensus statements and programme implementation

Research focused on mental health in sport has revealed a need to develop evidence-supported mental health practices that are sensitive to sport culture, for elite and non-elite athletes (Breslin and Leavey, 2019). In recent years several consensus statements have been produced to assist effective mental health awareness program development and evaluation. The purpose of this symposium is to highlight the available international evidence to aid those practitioners and researchers developing programs. The first presenter will provide evidence from an updated systematic review of interventions to increase awareness of mental health and well‑being in athletes, coaches, officials and parents (Breslin et al., 2022). Presentation 2 will include the findings from a recent systematic review of mental health awareness programme targeted at adolescents. The third and fourth presentation will include descriptions and evaluations of two interventions, the State of Mind Ireland Program (Shannon et al, 2019) and The Optimum Performance Program in Sports (TOPPS) (Donohue et al 2022) delivered in the USA, both are evidence-based service delivery models for athletes. A theme throughout the presentations will be a critical review of international evidence- informed programme content, and research evaluation.