SynthesisSports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.)2025
The Mental Health of Sporting Officials: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- "Playing on" or "calling time"? retention and motivation for sport officials.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe mental health of participants in sport has attracted increasing focus within research, practice, and policy. While mental health in sports has received increased attention, the mental health of sporting officials-such as judges, referees, and umpires-remains significantly under-researched compared with athletes. To our knowledge, there are no systematic reviews and meta-analyses that have synthesised available prevalence data of mental health symptoms and disorders in sporting officials. In addition, while previous reviews have provided a broad overview of risk and protective factors in relation to overall mental health, links between identified factors and specific mental health and well-being outcomes have not been explored. Therefore, this study aimed to systematically review and analyse the prevalence rates of mental health symptoms and disorders (e.g., depression and anxiety) among sporting officials and identify specific risk and protective factors influencing sporting officials' mental health and/or psychological well-being.
methodsRelevant studies were retrieved from SCOPUS, Web of Science, SPORTDiscus and PsycINFO up until July 2025. Prevalence rates of specific mental health outcomes (i.e. anxiety and depressive symptoms) were meta-analysed.
resultsA total of 26 studies were included. Meta-analyses comprising 2797 sporting officials showed that the pooled proportion of elevated anxiety symptoms was 19.1% (95% CI 13.4-27, I
conclusionsThe results suggest that targeting change at various levels of the sport ecosystem may help foster and promote positive mental health outcomes among sporting officials. The findings of this review suggest that strategies tailored to officials could include age/level of experience-specific support interventions and creating organisational cultures that prioritise mental health outcomes.
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