Who is at risk? Mental health and perfectionism-coping profiles in strength and conditioning coaches

Abstract

Despite growing recognition of mental health in sport environments, research has focused primarily on athletes, with far less attention given to support staff such as strength and conditioning (S&C) coaches. To capture how perfectionism dimensions and coping strategies naturally co-occur within individuals, this study utilized a person-centered approach to identify high-risk psychological profiles among S&C coaches ( n = 303). Participants completed validated measures of perfectionism, coping strategies, depressive and anxiety symptoms, and life satisfaction. K-means cluster analysis identified three distinct profiles: High-Strain Coaches (high self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism), Internal Critics (high self-oriented perfectionism and high self-blame), and Sustainable Professionals (lower perfectionism and low self-blame). Subsequent analyses of variance revealed statistically significant differences between clusters across all mental health outcomes ( p <.05). Both High-Strain Coaches and Internal Critics reported significantly higher depressive and anxiety symptoms compared with Sustainable Professionals, while Internal Critics also demonstrated the lowest life satisfaction. The results demonstrate that mental health risk in S&C coaching is not uniformly distributed but rather tied to specific psychological profiles. These findings highlight the importance of supporting the mental health of S&C coaches through targeted strategies addressing both organizational contributors to perceived external pressure and internally-driven perfectionism and self-critical coping patterns.