Determining Intention to Provide Culturally Responsive Clinical Mental Health Care to Collegiate Student-Athletes

Mental health care providers’ cultural responsiveness related to athletics is crucial to their clinical care provision for student-athletes on college campuses. However, little research has been conducted in applying a theoretical framework to explore providers’ intentions to provide culturally responsive clinical care to this specific student population. Understanding providers’ perceptions of student-athletes is integral in assuring clinical care provision that is responsive related to the culture of athletics. The purpose of this study was to test a conceptual model that adapted the Theory of Planned Behavior to explore the determinants of providers’ intention to be culturally responsive to the unique needs of collegiate student-athletes. For this study, cultural responsiveness was defined as the cumulative level of a provider’s self-efficacy related to communicating with student-athletes, empathy specific to student-athletes, positive attitudes toward the culture of athletics, and knowledge related to the culture of athletics. Data were collected using an online survey method, and the responses from 153 participants were analyzed using multiple regression analysis. The results indicated that all survey scales were stable and reliable on which to base our data analysis results. Additionally, results suggested that the adapted TPB can be a useful framework in predicting mental health care providers’ intention to be culturally responsive to student-athletes’ unique needs. Implications for research are discussed.