Depression in elite athletes: Prevalence and psychological factors

Depression among elite athletes has raised public awareness. Interestingly, empirical data on the issue are rare. Neither representative prevalence rates nor insights into the special mechanisms leading to depressionin the field of elite athletes are known in detail. The following work reviews the current state of research trying to get a first summary in what is known about underlying mechanisms leading to depression and trying to answer the question whether or not depression are widespread among German elite athletes. By analyzing the current studies in this field, the present article provides a scientific overview of first findings and academic voids. Initial studies on German elite athletes point out that the prevalence for depressive symptomatology in elite athletes is comparable to the general German population. Due to the small number and quality of studies there are no representative data. Therefore, future studies using clinical criteria of assessing depressive episodes are needed. Associated factors in competitive sports are high levels of chronic stress, coping strategies, and the balance of physical and psychological stress and recovery. Therefore, the sport specific physical stress seems to play an important role. There are uncertain hints for social factors, such as team cohesion, and individual factors (e.g. perfectionism). However, there are insufficient studies to draw statements about relevance or effect of these topics. Further studies could gain scientific evidence by examining the causality and theory driven hypotheses of these factors.