Sport is an area of life that is strongly driven by the desire for performance which can encourage athletes to neglect their health and wellbeing. It is therefore not surprising that research on mental health in sport has found prevalence of diagnosable psychiatric disorders ranging from 4% to 68% (Elbe & Nylandsted Jensen, 2016). Thriving describes a combination of high well-being (i.e., flourishing) and a sustained high level of performance (Brown et al., 2018) and could therefore be an ideal term to promote both in this kind of environment. The purpose of this poster is to provide a conceptual framework indicating coaches’ fields of action for the promotion of athletes’ mental health, well-being and performance (i.e., thriving). Literature on the promotion of mental health and wellbeing within the sport setting was searched and critically reviewed. In this evaluation two sources were found to be especially helpful as foundation of such a conceptual framework. One source was a scoping review investigating risk and protective factors for mental health in elite athletes (Kuettel & Larsen, 2020). The second article presented a conceptual model for mental health and performance of North American athletes (Ayala et al., 2022). The new framework defines six areas in which coaches have primary responsibility for promoting the thriving of their athletes (i.e., mental health stigma; mental health literacy; social support and team relationship; psychological needs satisfaction; intentional practice with a strong focus on injury and overtraining prevention; career management). In three other areas coaches have a supporting role (i.e., self-awareness; mindfulness; set back and stress management including psychological skills training). The proposed conceptual framework can be used to enable coaches to strengthen flourishing and performance of their athletes in a proactive manner.
