A review maps emotional pressures facing college athletes
Sport, coursework, and relationships with coaches or teammates were recurring stressors. The review also surveyed coping approaches, but the abstract leaves their comparative effectiveness unclear.
Based on the published abstract. The full paper may contain additional methods, results and limitations.
The 30-second takeaway
The review describes emotional strain where athletic and academic demands overlap, with anxiety, depressive symptoms, and burnout or fatigue appearing across the literature. It identifies several supported coping approaches, but the abstract does not provide comparative effect sizes or intervention details. These findings map recurring concerns rather than quantify a universal student-athlete experience.
Most included studies were cross-sectional. The abstract does not report pooled treatment effects, comparison conditions, or assessment timing, limiting conclusions about how much any coping approach helps.
What the percentages represent
Many of the reported percentages describe how often studies mentioned a stressor or emotional outcome. They are not estimates of how many college athletes experience those problems, and should not be read as population prevalence.
What support was examined
The review highlighted psychological skills training, cognitive behavioral therapy, and self-care practices such as mindfulness and sleep hygiene. Without the intervention comparisons and effect estimates, this abstract cannot establish which approach works best or for whom.
The original publication
Advancements in research on psychological and emotional aspects of student-athletes.
Mao Z
Front Psychol · 2025
- PubMed ID
- 41132600
- Record checked
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