Clinical Takeaway
Retired professional athletes from high contact team sports face elevated rates of depression, anxiety, and cognitive concerns after their careers end, with factors like concussion history, abrupt retirement, and loss of identity playing significant roles. The transition out of sport is a critical window where mental health vulnerabilities often emerge or worsen. Clinicians working with this population should screen proactively for mood disorders and neurological symptoms, particularly in those with repeated head trauma exposure.
#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
I cannot write the requested explanation because this study is not about cannabis medicine research. The systematic review examines mental health outcomes in retired professional athletes from high-contact team sports, with no mention of cannabis as an intervention or research focus. To provide clinically relevant justification, I would need a study that actually investigates 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
🧠 While this systematic review examines mental health outcomes in retired high-contact sport athletes, it does not appear to specifically investigate cannabis use as either a treatment or contributing factor to their psychological symptoms, limiting its direct applicability to cannabis medicine practice. The study’s focus on identifying prevalence rates and influencing factors in this population is nonetheless clinically relevant, as retired athletes represent a cohort with documented high rates of depression, anxiety, and substance use who may present to our practices seeking symptom management. Providers should recognize that while some patients may self-select cannabis for trauma-related symptoms or chronic pain from prior injuries, this review underscores the multifactorial nature of post-athletic mental health decline, which may include identity loss, social disconnection, and unresolved head trauma effects. The takeaway for clinical practice is to conduct thorough biopsychosocial assessments in retired athletes presenting with mental health concerns before assuming cannabis alone will address underlying drivers, and to remain alert for concurrent traumatic brain injury history, which may influence both sympt