Key Points - The COVID-19 pandemic has changed much of the way athletic health care teams manage student-athletes with routine and emergency mental health concerns. - Regardless of the institutional resources, athletic health care teams need more licensed mental health counselors and easier access to psychiatrists. - Interprofessional mental health care teams operate differently across organizations. Immediately upon onboarding new personnel, the organization should provide training to ensure that new members of the team are apprised of the mental health emergency action plan, given the rising risk of mental health emergencies. Collegiate student-athletes experience an increasing number of mental health concerns. To help address these concerns and provide high-quality health care for student-athletes, institutions of higher education are being encouraged to create interprofessional health care teams that are specifically dedicated to managing mental health. We interviewed 3 interprofessional health care teams who collaborate to manage routine and emergency mental health conditions in collegiate student-athletes. Teams represented all 3 National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) divisions and included athletic trainers, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, dietitians and nutritionists, social workers, nurses, and physician assistants (associates). The interprofessional teams indicated that the existing NCAA recommendations helped to solidify members and roles of the mental health care team; however, they all believed their teams would benefit from more counselors and psychiatrists. Teams had different mechanisms for referral and accessing mental health resources on their campuses, which may make on-the-job training for new members of the team an organizational necessity.
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