Abstract
Compared to non-athletes, student-athletes have shown less help-seeking behaviors and more resistance towards counselling services (Donohue et al., 2018). Specific contextual factors may be significant reasons for these help-seeking trends including social support and institutional/organizational characteristics (Mcleroy et al., 1988; Tashkandi et al., 2022). Additionally, COVID-19 appears to have had mental health ramifications for post-secondary student-athletes, as well as the larger student population (Dragioti et al., 2022). Therefore, the current study aimed to assess student-athlete help-seeking behaviours both before and after COVID-19 within the context of varsity status and campus characteristics. This study utilized the Canadian subset of the National College Health Assessment (NCHA) from data collected in the Spring 2019 (52,326 students) and the spring 2022 (10,870 students). Self-reported general, campus and future help-seeking rates for both varsity and non-varsity students were compared with descriptive statistics and logistic regression models. Results indicated that while varsity athletes had significantly lower general help-seeking rates in 2019 (40.71% vs. 46.51%), these rates were equal in 2022 (49.4% vs. 49.6%). Campus help-seeking rates while not significantly different in 2019 (21.1% vs. 19.9%) show significantly higher rates for varsity athletes in 2022 (21.1% vs. 12.4%). Lastly, students at smaller campuses (<5k) both before and after COVID-19 were significantly more likely to engage in all three help-seeking measures. Findings suggest that general help-seeking rates between varsity athletes and students have stabilized after COVID-19, however varsity athletes are now much more likely to seek help on campus compared to other students.
