Emily Bonisteel, Diane Mack, Nathan Hall, Philip Wilson

A student-athlete’s departure from sport has been found to have psychological, emotional, and social consequences, with as high as 57% of former student-athletes reporting negative experiences leaving sport, including identity crisis, distress, and changes in social relationships. According to Self-Determination Theory (SDT) three basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness must be fulfilled to have optimal wellbeing and functioning. The actions, or interpersonal behaviours, of coaches are able to either support or thwart a student-athlete’s basic psychological needs. Coaches’ interpersonal behaviours affect mental health in current athletes, but no investigation has looked at continued affects on former athletes, specifically student-athletes through the lens of SDT. The purpose of this study is to look for connections between the relationship an athlete has with their coach in their final season of play, and the student-athletes’ mental health after leaving university-level sport. An online questionnaire will be administered using Qualtrics following a non-experimental, cross-sectional design. Eligible participants are former Ontario University Athletics (OUA) student-athletes who are fluent in English and have internet access. Items comprising the questionnaire will assess demographics and OUA sport participation, coach-athlete relationship using the Interpersonal Behaviours Questionnaire (IBQ), and mental health with the Self-Rated Mental Health Item. Bivariate correlations will be calculated to determine whether there is a relationship between the interpersonal behaviours of coaches and the mental health of former student-athletes.