Clinical Takeaway
Retired professional athletes from high contact team sports face elevated rates of depression, anxiety, and cognitive concerns compared to the general population, with factors like repetitive head impacts, abrupt career endings, and loss of identity playing significant roles. The transition out of professional sport is a critical vulnerability window, particularly when athletes lack psychological support or structured post-career planning. Addressing mental health proactively during and after athletic careers, rather than reactively, appears essential for this population.
#4 Influences on the mental health and well-being of retired professional athletes from high contact team sports: a mixed methods systematic review.
Citation: Vella Jordan D et al.. Influences on the mental health and well-being of retired professional athletes from high contact team sports: a mixed methods systematic review.. British journal of sports medicine. 2026. PMID: 40930571.
Design: 5 Journal: 0 N: 2 Recency: 3 Pop: 1 Human: 1 Risk: 0
This systematic review does not address cannabis medicine research and therefore cannot be evaluated for clinical relevance to that field. The study examines mental health outcomes in retired professional athletes from high-contact sports, which is unrelated to cannabis therapeutics.
Methodological Considerations:
- Self-reported outcomes — recall and social-desirability bias risk
- Cross-sectional design — causal inference not possible
Abstract: OBJECTIVE: To report the prevalence of mental health symptoms and influencing factors in retired professional high contact team sport (HCTS) athletes. DESIGN: Mixed-methods systematic review. DATA SOURCES: PsycINFO, Embase, Medline, SPORTDiscus and Scopus were searched in July 2023 and March 2025. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA FOR SELECTING STUDIES: Studies that investigated mental health and/or influencing factors within retired professional HCTS athletes were included. Studies that were non-peer-reviewed, could not obtain full text, used secondary data or focused on non-elite/individual/low-contact sports were excluded. RESULTS: 85 studies were included in the final review, comprising 53 996 participants (females; n=247, 0.46%) from six sports (Australian Football League, Canadian Football League, football/soccer, ice hockey, National Football League and rugby). Prevalence ranges varied for each condition; smoking (0.9%-16%), depression (3%-49%), anxiety (4.3%-42%), cannabis use (5%-15.7%), adverse alcohol use (6.4%-68.8%), opioid use (7%-23.6%), stress (8.7%-26.9%), illicit drug use (10%-63.2%), anxiety/depression (10.2%-39%) and adverse nutritional behaviour (23.8%-64.5%). Of the studies including M and SD of validated scales, scores for depression, anxiety and sleep disturbance were equivalent to population norms, whereas mild or higher scores were reported for stress and adverse alcohol use. Concussion, pain, injury, neurological factors and declined physical function were shown to have a negative influence on mental health. Both negative and positive influences were observed for: athletic identity, psychosocial support, retirement autonomy, life events, osteoarthritis, retirement and cognitive function. 48% of studies had good methodological quality; however, most studies were cross-sectional, relied on self-report measures and lacked follow-up data and female athletes. CONCLUSION: Retired HCTS athletes experience high levels of psychological distress and adverse alco
🧠 While this systematic review examines mental health outcomes in retired professional athletes from high-contact sports, it does not appear to address cannabis as a therapeutic intervention or confounding variable, limiting its direct relevance to cannabis medicine practice. The study’s focus on prevalence and influencing factors for depression, anxiety, and other conditions in this population is valuable context, as retired athletes frequently self-report cannabis use for pain management, sleep, and mood regulation following career-related injuries and post-sport transition challenges. However, without data specifically examining cannabis use patterns, efficacy, or safety in this cohort, we cannot draw clinical conclusions about its role in their mental health management or whether it functions as therapeutic agent or complicating factor. Clinicians treating retired athletes should recognize the high prevalence of both mental health symptoms and likely cannabis use in this population, remain alert to potential interactions between cannabis and conventional psychiatric medications, and consider comprehensive substance use screening that includes candid discussion about cannabis rather than assuming abstinence.