Ex professional footballers have lower risk of anxiety and depression study shows
Led by consultant neuropathologist Dr Willie Stewart, honorary clinical associate Professor at the University of Glasgow, this latest research looked at mental health outcomes in over 7,500 former professional footballers and approximately 23,000 general population controls and is published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.
The new findings from the FIELD study announced today, show that former professional football players have lower risk of hospitalization for the most common mental health disorders, including anxiety and depression, and are at no greater risk of suicide.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdThe results follow the publication of landmark research last year, which found that former professional footballers had an approximately three and a half times higher rate of death due to neurodegenerative disease than expected.
Recent concerns over the risk of mental health disorder and suicide in former athletes have been driven, in part, by post-mortem studies reporting a specific degenerative brain pathology linked to exposure to brain injury.
Known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), this pathology has been described in a high proportion of former contact sports athletes, including former footballers and has been linked to psychiatric presentations including depression and suicidality.
Nevertheless, despite former professional footballers in the FIELD study having high rates of dementia, they were at lower risk of hospital admission for the most common mental health disorders, when compared to matched counterparts in the general population.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdSpecifically, former footballer players were approximately half as likely to be admitted for anxiety and stress related disorders, depressive disorder, alcohol use disorders, drug use disorders, and bipolar and affective mood disorders.
Further analysis showed no significant difference in deaths due to suicide between footballers and their matched population controls.
Dr Willie Stewart said: “This is the first and largest study to date to investigate the association between elite level contact sport and risk of common mental health disorders after retirement in this way.
“Our findings show that, despite former professional footballers having higher death from neurodegenerative disease, they are in fact approximately half as likely to be admitted to hospital with common mental health disorders.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide Ad“This is important, because in recent decades there have been suggestions that common mental health disorders and suicide are features of neurodegenerative disease in contact sports athletes. The results from FIELD would suggest this is not the case after all."
The FIELD study is currently funded by the Football Association (FA) and the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) to the end of February 2021.
Further Information on the study
Data on mental health outcomes were obtained by individual-level record linkage to national electronic records of hospital admissions and death certification.
Study inclusion was restricted to individuals born prior to 1st January 1977, with study follow-up commencing from age 40. All former football players were male.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdThe Community Health Index database was used to randomly identify a general population comparison group, individually matched by sex, year of birth and social deprivation status to former soccer players on a 3:1 basis i.e. for each former football player 3 matched population controls were identified.
Among former professional football players neurodegenerative disease mortality is approximately three-and-a-half-fold higher than anticipated, with this risk ranging from an approximately doubling of deaths with Parkinson’s disease to a 5-fold increase in deaths with Alzheimer’s disease.
Further, CTE neuropathologic change is present in the majority of former football players dying with dementia.
The FIELD study is an acronym for ‘Football’s InfluencE on Lifelong health and Dementia risk.’ The FIELD study began in March 2018 and runs to February 2021.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdTwo-thirds of the footballers included in this study were born after 1952.
A message from the Editor: Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.
The dramatic events of 2020 are having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive. We are now more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription to support our journalism.
Subscribe to scotsman.com and enjoy unlimited access to Scottish news and information online and on our app. Visit https://www.scotsman.com/subscriptions now to sign up.
By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.
Joy Yates
Editorial Director
Comment Guidelines
National World encourages reader discussion on our stories. User feedback, insights and back-and-forth exchanges add a rich layer of context to reporting. Please review our Community Guidelines before commenting.