679 MEP082 – The importance of mental health in injury prevention and protecting injured athletes against mental ill-health in elite sport: a six-year retrospective cohort study

AbstractBackground Despite evidence for the association between injury and mental ill-health (Haugen, 2022), and growing evidence for mental ill-health as a risk factor for sport injuries (Li et al., 2017), their bi-directional relationship has not yet been examined in elite sport. Objective To examine the bi-directional relationship between sports injury and mental ill-health in elite athletes. Design A retrospective cohort design.Setting The study comprised secondary data analysis of elite athletes' injury and mental ill-health data collected across a six-year period from 1st of January 2017 to 31st December 2022, on the [Anonymised Name of National Data Management System].Participants 1979 elite UK athletes (1056 male, 923 female; Mage = 28.6 years, SD = 7.36) from 43 Olympic and Paralympic sports. Assessment of Risk Factors The presence of a mental ill-health episode or the number of previous injuries in the previous 12 months were included as risk factors within separate frailty models, using the R package survival. Main Outcome Measurements A total of 8430 injury events and 331 mental ill-health episodes were included in the models. Hazard ratios (HR) were the main outcome measures.Results A significant association was observed between whether an athlete had experienced a mental ill-health episode in the previous 12 months and their subsequent risk of injury (HR = 1.74; 95% CI = 1.60 to 1.89, p < .001). Additionally, a positive linear relationship was observed between the number of injuries incurred in the previous 12 months and an athlete's subsequent likelihood of experiencing a mental ill-health episode (HR = 1.09; 95% CI = 1.06 to 1.11, p < .001).Conclusions Based on the findings, practitioners should not only better support injured athletes' mental health, but also screen, and provide effective support for, mental ill-health among elite athletes to more effectively prevent injuries.