An investigation of college student-athletes’ mental health stigma, help-seeking attitudes, depression, anxiety, and life stress scores using structural equation modeling

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the directional relationship between student-athletes’ (N = 621) degree of mental health stigma, help-seeking attitudes, and levels of depression, anxiety, and life stress. The results of the structural equation model (SEM) analyses identified that student-athletes’ amount of mental health stigma contributed to help-seeking attitudes (25.6% of the variance), but not levels of depression (.16% of the variance), anxiety (.09% of the variance), or life stress (.81% of the variance). Specifically, student-athletes’ mental health stigma shared a strong negative relationship with attitudes towards seeking psychological help (β = −.506, p < .001) and the mediation models identified that personal stigma mediates the relationship between public stigma and help-seeking attitudes. Implications purport the need to address the stigma of mental health at the societal level in order to mitigate personal stigma and promote a positive sport culture surrounding mental health and health help-seeking within athletes.