Carter Tori B, Gorczynski Paul, Coady Christopher J, Cunningham Ian J, Mascarenhas Duncan R D, Grant Murray, Sullivan Philip, Webb Tom, Livingston Lori A, Hancock David J
School of Human Kinetics and Recreation, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL, Canada.
School of Human Sciences, University of Greenwich, London, United Kingdom.
Front Sports Act Living. 2024 Jul 29;6:1436149. doi: 10.3389/fspor.2024.1436149. eCollection 2024.
Sport officials are tasked with applying rules, maintaining fairness, and ensuring athlete safety. However, sport officials experience anxiety, burnout, and non-accidental violence, with the incidence of these events increasing worldwide. This has led to rising attrition rates among sport officials, with many sport organizations concerned for their operational capacity. The effects of anxiety, burnout, and non-accidental violence might contribute to or be indicative of sport officials' negative mental health outcomes. To develop a clear understanding of how sport officials' mental health is affected by their occupation, it is necessary to identify the mental health outcomes and predictors they experience, and to what extent. The purpose of this scoping review was to identify and examine the empirical research and policy documents surrounding sport officials' mental health.
One thousand, two hundred six articles were identified across four databases: PubMed, Web of Science, SportDiscus, and PsycINFO. Next, a policy search was conducted on the respective international governing body websites from English-speaking countries for the 60 included sports. Following screening, 18 studies and one policy document met the inclusion criteria for exploring sport officials' mental health.
Participants ( = 7,941) in the studies were mainly European male soccer and basketball referees. Most studies utilized quantitative inquiry ( = 15) rather than qualitative methods ( = 2) or framework development ( = 1). The research demonstrated that sport officials frequently experienced negative mental health outcomes and predictors including anxiety, depression, burnout, lower mental health literacy, and high levels of stigmatization towards mental health.
These outcomes were influenced by gender/sex, age, and experience. There is a need to explore personal and environmental (including occupational) factors that cause or contribute to sport officials' mental health symptoms and disorders.
体育官员的职责是执行规则、维护公平并确保运动员安全。然而，体育官员会经历焦虑、倦怠和非意外暴力，且这些事件在全球范围内的发生率都在上升。这导致体育官员的流失率不断上升，许多体育组织对其运营能力表示担忧。焦虑、倦怠和非意外暴力的影响可能会导致体育官员出现负面心理健康结果，或者表明他们存在此类问题。为了清楚地了解体育官员的心理健康如何受到其职业的影响，有必要确定他们所经历的心理健康结果和预测因素，以及受影响的程度。本综述的目的是识别和审查围绕体育官员心理健康的实证研究和政策文件。
通过四个数据库（PubMed、科学网、体育文献数据库和心理学文摘数据库）共识别出1206篇文章。接下来，在英语国家各自的国际管理机构网站上对60项纳入的体育项目进行了政策搜索。经过筛选，18项研究和1份政策文件符合探索体育官员心理健康的纳入标准。
研究中的参与者（n = 7941）主要是欧洲男性足球和篮球裁判。大多数研究采用定量研究方法（n = 15），而非定性方法（n = 2）或框架开发（n = 1）。研究表明，体育官员经常经历负面心理健康结果和预测因素，包括焦虑、抑郁、倦怠、较低的心理健康素养以及对心理健康的高度污名化。
这些结果受到性别、年龄和经验的影响。有必要探索导致或促成体育官员心理健康症状和障碍的个人和环境（包括职业）因素。
