A Scoping Review of Suicide Prevention Efforts Targeting Sport Stakeholders

Background and Purpose: Recently, social workers are giving more attention to supporting the mental health needs of athletes, especially as suicide rates doubled among college athletes and professional athletes such as Simone Biles advocate for the destigmatization of mental health challenges like suicide. However, there is a lack of clarity around intervention best practices for suicide prevention in sport. Therefore, the purpose of this scoping review was to collate and summarize the empirical literature related to suicide prevention programming delivered to sport stakeholders (e.g., athletes, coaches, athletic trainers). This scoping review will be helpful for guiding future research and practice on improving the common good, particularly related to suicide prevention in sport.

Methods: Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines, this scoping review synthesized the literature on suicide prevention interventions among athletes, coaches, and other key sport stakeholders. A search for relevant literature was performed using key terms such as “suicid*,” “sport,” and “intervention.” The search was conducted with eight different databases (e.g., APA PsychInfo, SportDISCUS). Additionally, all content published by three journals (i.e., Sport Social Work Journal, Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics, Journal of Athlete Development and Experience) that are not currently indexed in any popular databases were hand-searched, as were the references of included articles. Any record that evaluated the effectiveness and/or implementation of a suicide prevention program delivered to sport stakeholders was included.

A total of 6,266 records were identified. After removing 1,886 duplicates, 4,380 titles and abstracts were screened. Then, 49 records were assessed for eligibility, resulting in the inclusion of 15 records. This included 13 peer-reviewed articles and two dissertations. The data from each included record were extracted by one researcher and validated by another researcher. Content analysis was used to organize data into themes, which involved two researchers independently coding the extracted data.

Results: A total of 4,298 athletes, coaches, sport volunteers, athletic trainers, and sport administrators were included across all the samples of the included records. Most samples consisted predominantly of White cisgender males. Just over half of the studies were in college settings (k = 8) while others focused on youth sport (k = 5) or elite sport (k = 2). Only two studies focused on sport for people with disabilities. The content analysis revealed many empirical suicide prevention programs were single-dose workshops (k = 6). Other studies shared results of multi-dose interventions (k = 5). Some discussed mental health screening and/or other tools as a form of prevention (k = 6). Also, two interventions were delivered online, demonstrating strong initial evidence for online-based suicide prevention training in sport.

Conclusions and Implications: Very little research has evaluated the implementation or effectiveness of suicide prevention programming in sport. Given the high suicide rates among athletes and the social significance of sport, social workers should facilitate the development and implementation of suicide prevention programming among this at-risk population. Specifically, suicide prevention programming should be designed or adapted to sport spaces while assessing effectiveness and implementation.