Résumé
Collegiate athletes experience distinct mental health challenges that are often unmet by campus services, and this is especially true for Canadian collegiate athletes who are also under-researched (Egan, 2019; Way et al. 2020). This project implemented the Talk Today program in Canadian university sport. The Talk Today program, developed by the Canadian Mental Health Association, includes a suicide awareness workshop, mental health champion, mental health coach, and awareness event. Nine Canadian University sport teams participated in the program and non-participating student-athletes acted as a control group. Suicide literacy was assessed with the Literacy of Suicide Scale (LOSS; Calear et al., 2022) at baseline, 3-months, and 6-months post-workshop. To assess change over time, an Individual Growth Curve (IGC) analysis was conducted. IGC’s account for baseline differences between individuals and can detect changes on the dependent variable based on clusters. The dependent variable was suicide literacy, and the clusters were time, group (intervention/control), and gender. The IGC revealed a significant main effect of gender (β = -2.04, SE = .90, p<.05), and a significant interaction of gender*time (β = 1.24, SE = .57, p<.05), but no effect of the intervention over time. However, participants attend a university that is consistently ranked highest for mental health support, and the intervention (79%) and control (82%) groups’ LOSS scores were higher than the general population (63%) and university students (58%; Calear et al., 2022). Participants also reported increased confidence in helping others and comfort in knowing resources are available.
