Clinical Takeaway
Retired professional athletes from high contact team sports show elevated rates of depression, anxiety, and cognitive concerns compared to the general population, with contributing factors including repetitive head trauma, abrupt career transitions, chronic pain, and loss of athletic identity. Mental health outcomes appear shaped by both the physical toll of sport participation and the psychological challenges of life after competition. Clinicians working with this population should screen proactively for mood disorders, cognitive symptoms, and substance use, particularly in those with significant exposure to contact and collision.
#3 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
I cannot write this explanation because the study described is a systematic review on mental health in retired athletes, not a cannabis medicine research study. The title and abstract contain no mention of cannabis, cannabinoids, or cannabis-based 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
🧠 This systematic review examining mental health outcomes in retired professional athletes from high-contact sports identifies significant prevalence of depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders in this population, though the heterogeneity of study designs and definitions of “high-contact” sports limits firm conclusions about causality. While the review does not specifically address cannabis use as either a risk factor or potential therapeutic intervention, clinicians should recognize that retired athletes commonly self-manage mood and pain symptoms and may turn to cannabis for symptom relief, making careful assessment of motivations and alternative evidence-based treatments essential. The documented risk factors including repeated head trauma, loss of athletic identity, social isolation, and chronic pain suggest that any cannabis recommendation in this population would require thorough evaluation of underlying conditions and consideration of whether the athlete is using cannabis to cope with untreated or undertreated mental health or pain disorders. Given the potential for cannabis to worsen anxiety or depressive symptoms in vulnerable individuals, and the particular vulnerability of athletes with histories of traumatic brain injury, a comprehensive biopsychosoc