Players’ and coaches’ perceptions of players’ mental health help-seeking process in elite level football

Abstract

Mental health among athletes has been a discussed topic in the media in the past years and multiple athletes have started sharing public stories about their mental health problems. The topic has also gained more and more interest in the area of research in recent years. This Master’s thesis concentrated on finding out the perceptions of the players’ help-seeking process in elite level football. The purpose of the study was to examine how players and coaches in Kansallinen Liiga perceived the current mental health help-seeking process for players, what were their needs for the process at the moment, and how the support system could be developed in the future if needed. Additionally, perspectives about responsibilities to offer support were asked.

This qualitative study using semi-structured interviews as a data gathering method was conducted among Finnish football players and coaches in Kansallinen Liiga, the highest women’s football league in Finland. Three coaches and three players from six different teams were interviewed. The themes which guided the interviews were “the state at the moment”, “responsibilities”, and “development”. The data was analyzed using the thematic analysis method and the most prominent themes were acquired from the data.

Four themes stood out from the data. They were related to the unclarity of the process, help-seeking activity, state of stigma, and development of the process. The results showed that there was unclarity where the help for players’ mental health problems could be sought among players and coaches or there was no clear path for help-seeking. Because of this, multiple different places were mentioned as a way to seek help. Some of the mentioned paths were schooling systems, sport academies or Player’s Union’s services. However, not all the services were familiar to every participant of the study or were accessible for every player in the league. Related to help-seeking activity, several barriers and facilitators to seek help were mentioned. One of the barriers was stigma. It was thought that even though it has been reducing in the past years, stigma still existed at some levels in the football scene and affected help-seeking activity.

Several development ideas for the mental health help-seeking process were acquired in the study. They were concentrated on reducing stigma, adding education to various parties in the sporting context, creating low threshold path to seek help, and in prevention through learning tools and techniques to develop mental skills. These results could be used to improve present or develop future mental health policies and services in football even though more research is needed on the topic.