Association of mental health help-seeking with mental health-related knowledge and stigma in Japan Rugby Top League players

Yasutaka Ojio, Asami Matsunaga, Sosei Yamaguchi, Kensuke Hatakeyama, Shin Kawamura, Goro Yoshitani, Masanori Horiguchi, Shun Nakajima, Ayako Kanie, Masaru Horikoshi and Chiyo Fujii

PLOS ONE, 2021, vol. 16, issue 8, 1-14

Abstract: Background: Globally increasing clinical and research interests are driving a movement to promote understanding and practice of mental health in elite athletes. However, few studies have yet addressed this issue. This study aims to describe the association of the intention to seek help with mental health knowledge and stigma and the severity of depressive symptoms in Japan Rugby Top League players. Methods: As a target population, we studied 233 Japan Rugby Top League male players (25–29 years = 123 [52.8%]), who were born in Japan, using a cross-sectional design. Surveys were conducted using anonymous, web-based self-administered questionnaires. Structural equation modelling was performed to evaluate the hypothesis of an interrelationship between mental health knowledge, stigma, and severity of depressive symptoms as factors influencing the intention to seek help. Results: Players with more severe depressive symptoms were more reluctant to seek help from others (β = - 0.20, p = 0.03). Players with greater knowledge about mental health tended to have less stigma toward others with mental health problems (β = 0.13, p = 0.049), but tended not to seek help with their own mental health problems. Conclusions: Rugby players in need of mental health support, even with greater knowledge, tend not to seek help from others, while having less stigma toward people with mental health problems. Rugby players might require approaches other than a knowledge-based educational approach to encourage them to seek help.

Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0256125 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 56125&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0256125

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0256125

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().