Clinical Takeaway
Retired professional athletes from high contact team sports such as football, rugby, and hockey face elevated rates of depression, anxiety, and cognitive concerns compared to the general population. Key influencing factors include repetitive head impacts, abrupt career transitions, loss of identity, and reduced social support after leaving sport. Addressing mental health in this population requires proactive screening and structured transition programs that begin before retirement.
#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 the requested explanation because this study concerns mental health outcomes in retired athletes from contact sports, not cannabis medicine research. The title and abstract provided contain no cannabis-related intervention or outcome measures, making it impossible to explain clinical significance regarding cannabis medicine based on this document.
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 contact sport athletes—a population that may seek cannabis for pain management, sleep disturbance, or mood symptoms—the study itself does not address cannabis use or cannabinoid interventions. The findings likely reflect a complex interplay of chronic traumatic brain injury, musculoskeletal pain, social identity loss, and financial stressors that could theoretically influence cannabis-seeking behavior, but the review provides no direct evidence about cannabis efficacy or safety in this cohort. Clinicians should recognize that retired athletes with depression, anxiety, or chronic pain warrant comprehensive assessment before cannabis consideration, particularly given potential interactions between cannabinoids and neuroinflammatory or post-concussive sequelae that remain understudied in this population. The absence of cannabis-specific data here reinforces that this demographic’s mental health needs are likely best addressed through evidence-based psychotherapy, pain management, and sports medicine approaches first, with cannabis only considered as adjunctive therapy after standard interventions and with
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