Mental health of collegiate and Olympic athletes
Garland School of Social Work PhD student Cali Werner (a former Collegiate and Olympic Trialist athlete) was awarded funding to study the mental health of Collegiate and Olympic athletes. She is working to assess and develop evidence-based interventions for elite athletes.
Growing out of her own experiences as a elite athlete and witnessing firsthand the effects of Obsessive Compulsive Disorders and other mental health struggles athletes face, Werner is surveying current Collegiate and interviewing current and former Olympic athletes in the United States. With over 140 survey responses from Collegiate athletes, she plans to understand better athletes’ mental health needs and the correlates of mental health symptoms, including the impact of NIL (name image likeness) deals on their mental health. She is now interviewing current and former Olympic athletes with the goal of understanding the phenomenon of the Olympic Blues, a common emotional experience that is believed to be common after participating in a peak athletic event. These findings, which will be disseminated in Werner’s three-article dissertation, will inform the future development of evidence-based treatment and prevention manuals for sport social work practitioners. Werner said, “I’m grateful to Baylor for this opportunity. There’s no way I would have the ability to recruit like I am now without this grant funding. So, it’s making a huge difference in the research. We have such incredible professors in our program. If you have a niche area you want to study, there is very likely to be someone you can work with as long as you are willing to reach out and make the connection.”
Elite athletes have increasingly become more open about their mental health struggles and social work behavioral health practitioners will benefit from this kind of evidence-based intervention implemented out of direct research. The GSSW is excited to see our faculty and students work together to improve the lives of their clients through Baylor’s OVPR internally funded research grants.
Learn more about PhD Student Cali Werner.