Topic
Life after serving my country: Development, Implementation and Evaluation of a Psychosocial Intervention for Retired Athletes and Military Service People with Addictive Behaviours
Project description
Although various governing bodies and sport institutes have developed career transition programmes to assist individuals to develop careers outside sport, career transition support for retired athletes who are exposed to addiction to drugs, alcohol, and gambling is under-researched. Drugs, alcohol and gambling are recognised as negative coping skills following career termination which requires behaviour changes. Rates of common mental health disorders in UK troops are similar or higher to those of the general population, and overall operational deployments are not associated with an increase in mental health problems in UK regular forces. However, there does appear to be a correlation between both deployment and increased alcohol misuse and post-deployment violence in combat troops.
The main goal of this project is to develop a novel psychosocial intervention that can contribute to enabling retired athletes and military service personnel to understand their social identities and available social support and to develop psychological/mental skills to apply to their transitions process without addiction to negative behaviours such as drugs, alcohol, and gambling.
