Published in a peer-reviewed journalOriginal research

A preliminary study on the prevalence of mental health symptoms in current and former elite kickboxers and their possible association with severe musculoskeletal injuries and concussions

Sharaisha Bilgoe, Gino M M J Kerkhoffs, Vincent Gouttebarge. 2025. Discover Mental Health.

Read the full textDOI 10.1007/s44192-025-00328-wPubMed 41264054

The medical question

Which mental-health needs require better recognition and support for fighters?

The Fight Medicine Research Institute uses this evidence to frame questions about a fighter’s psychological health, access to support and health after competition. The study’s population and assessment methods determine which questions it can inform.

Summary

Current and former elite kickboxers completed mental-health screening questionnaires covering distress, anxiety, depression, sleep, substance use and eating concerns.

What the abstract reports

  • 45 current and 29 former elite kickboxers answered screening questionnaires from the International Olympic Committee Sport Mental Health Assessment Tool 1.
  • Among current kickboxers, the most common positive screens were disordered eating (63%) and psychological distress (57%). Among former kickboxers, they were alcohol misuse (43%) and psychological distress (36%).
  • No statistically significant association was found between mental health symptoms and severe musculoskeletal injuries or concussions.

Publication status and notices

Published in a peer-reviewed journal. Cross-sectional survey in Discover Mental Health. PubMed publication type: Journal Article.

No correction, retraction or expression of concern was found in PubMed, Crossref or Scite when this record was checked.

Fight Medicine Research Institute contribution

Fight Medicine Research Institute selected and catalogued this study, prepared an original research summary, verified its bibliographic details, and maintains the associated citation record.

The Fight Medicine Research Institute has also published a selected-paper appraisal of this source: Mental-health symptoms in elite kickboxers.

Article details

Relationship
External research catalogued by the Fight Medicine Research Institute. The original authors, journal and DOI are unchanged.
Published online
20 November 2025
Repository date
20 November 2025 (Europe PMC first-publication date)
Date used here
20 November 2025 (Crossref publisher deposit, online publication date)
Rights
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), as recorded by Europe PMC and the licence link in the source record. The licence does not cover commercial reuse or adapted versions. The summary on this page is Fight Medicine Research Institute’s own wording. No abstract text, figure or table from the article is reproduced here. Licence terms.
Source check
, against PubMed (NCBI), Crossref, Europe PMC and Scite. Checked under the direction of Casey C. Sears, Founder. An LLM was utilized as a research tool with direct human oversight.
Appraisal
The check covered bibliographic details, links, licence and notices. It is not a formal critical appraisal of the full paper; the linked selected-paper appraisal is a separate output.
Clinical review
None. This record is a research summary, not clinical education.
Funding and conflicts
See the source record for the authors’ funding and disclosures.
Catalog
FH-014, added

Cite the original work

These files cite the work by its own authors, journal and DOI. Fight Medicine Research Institute appears only in a note, as curator of this catalog page.

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