Guardians of Elite Minds

Every clinician who works with athletes starts from scratch. You shouldn’t have to.

Curated screening instruments with the clinical guidance that never comes attached to them — free, and open to anyone.

Explore the clinical tools Get practical notes

What this is

If you work with athletes, you have probably built your own toolkit from whatever you could find. The Institute is where that stops being necessary.

The gap

Clinicians entering athlete care assemble their own tools, with no shared reference for what a measure can and cannot tell them.

Who it is for

Licensed clinicians working with athletes: MDs, DOs, NPs and PAs. Sports psychiatry is the center of gravity, and the door is open wider than that.

Who builds it

Clinicians practicing inside professional sport, contributing the materials and judgment they use in the work.

What is coming

A directory of the clinicians doing this work, forming now. Membership is by invitation while it takes shape.

Free · No account required

Clinical assessment tools

A curated set of instruments used in athlete care, each with guidance on when it helps, what it cannot tell you, and what to open up next.

These are clinical prompts, not diagnostic tools. None is a diagnostic instrument, and none can provide medical clearance. Before interpreting any score here, ask the athlete how they think they are doing and what they make of their own result — they know things no screening form can capture. Each entry links to its source; the Institute does not host or redistribute these instruments.

ABQ

Athlete Burnout Questionnaire

When it may help

Exploring exhaustion, reduced sense of accomplishment, and growing detachment from the sport.

Limitation to explain

Its three dimensions need clinical context. Scores alone do not establish a psychiatric diagnosis.

What to discuss next

Which of the three dimensions is driving the total; each leads somewhere different. For exhaustion, walk through an actual week rather than a typical one — sleep after late games, eating for the workload, the day off that still holds treatment and travel. Persistent fatigue also earns a medical workup. For reduced accomplishment, ask what doing well would look like right now and whose expectations they are measuring against. For devaluation, slow down on “I don’t care anymore” — ask what they stopped caring about and when. Losing the sport and dreading the environment are different findings. Then ask how far the change reaches outside sport: broader loss of pleasure or hopelessness calls for a depression assessment, and burnout and depression can coexist.

View questionnaire in source article

Kansas Journal of Medicine, open access. Instrument in Figure 1, scoring described above it. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 — link only, no hosted or digital version.

AFAQ

Athlete Fear Avoidance Questionnaire

When it may help

Exploring injury-related fear and avoidance during rehabilitation, particularly when progress stalls without a clear physical explanation.

Limitation to explain

Interpret alongside healing status and medical restrictions. The evidence does not establish that it can independently determine safe return to sport.

What to discuss next

Start at the moment of hesitation: “When you imagine doing that movement, what do you expect will happen?” Fear of pain, fear of reinjury, and fear of discovering you cannot play as you did look identical from the sideline. Check the physical picture with the rehabilitation team first — ongoing symptoms, unclear restrictions or conflicting messages make caution reasonable, and the score cannot settle that. Then ask what returning means to this person: what they are looking forward to, what feels hard, what they think people will expect once they are cleared. To separate protective caution from avoidance, watch whether the response tracks the evidence. Caution that follows symptoms and task demands may be appropriate; needing a guarantee before trying anything, or fear spreading to easier tasks, warrants a closer look. A small agreed task helps — ask what they predict, let the rehabilitation clinician run it, then compare the prediction with what happened. Worth asking how they have handled fear before, and what worked.

View questionnaire in source article

Dover & Amar, J Athl Train 2015;50(6):634–642. Free full text on PubMed Central; instrument included. Copyrighted — link only.

AIMS-7

Athletic Identity Measurement Scale, seven-item version

When it may help

Exploring identification with the athlete role during injury, role change, deselection or career transition.

Limitation to explain

A strong athletic identity is not inherently pathological. The scale does not diagnose an adjustment disorder or an identity crisis.

What to discuss next

A high score is not a problem to solve; it is a reason to understand what the identity does for this person. Three questions. “What does being an athlete give you?” — belonging, purpose, livelihood, a place where they feel capable. The answer also names what an injury would threaten. “What happens to how you see yourself when you cannot perform?” — listen for how far the disappointment reaches, and whether it changes what they do: does it make it harder to say they are hurting, or to take the recovery time they need? That consequence is what makes a high score clinically meaningful. “What helps you stay grounded then?” — ask for something specific from the last hard stretch, since someone can have family and interests and still not reach for any of them. Also worth asking whether people treat them differently when they are not playing; that may be a real change in their environment rather than something inside them. Be careful about going quickly to “Who are you outside sport?” It can land as a request to distance themselves from what they have spent a life becoming.

View seven-item scale and original research

Brewer & Cornelius 2001, university-hosted PDF. Seven-item version in Table I — the older ten-item scale circulates more widely.

ASSQ

Athlete Sleep Screening Questionnaire

When it may help

Evaluating sleep concerns, fatigue and recovery complaints, and deciding whether fuller sleep assessment is warranted.

Limitation to explain

Screens for sleep problems; it does not diagnose a sleep disorder. Interpretation involves modifiers beyond the main sleep difficulty score.

What to discuss next

Ask them to walk through a recent night, including what time their obligations actually ended. A late game is followed by treatment, media, travel, food and messages from home, so the window may be small even when they have done everything asked. Sort the problem into three: is there enough opportunity to sleep, does the timing fit their biology, and what is keeping them awake despite both. “How do you sleep when you can follow your own schedule?” separates the first two — advice about bedtime habits is worth little when the schedule leaves five hours in bed. For the third, exhausted is not the same as ready to sleep: ask what starts running through their mind when everything gets quiet, and whether anything feels unfinished or hard to step away from. Pursue the medical questions alongside — snoring, witnessed pauses, daytime sleepiness, restless legs, persistent pain, and the full picture of caffeine, pre-workout products, medication, alcohol and cannabis, including when and why. Fitness does not rule out a sleep disorder. One more: “What do you think will happen tomorrow if you sleep badly tonight?” Sleep can quietly become another performance test, especially for someone watching a wearable score.

Open the article — questionnaire and scoring key

Bender et al., Sports Medicine – Open 2018;4:23. Scroll to Additional Files: file 1 is the ASSQ, file 2 the sleep difficulty score key. CC BY 4.0 — retain attribution.

I-PRRS

Injury-Psychological Readiness to Return to Sport Scale

When it may help

Structuring the conversation about confidence as an injured athlete approaches return to participation.

Limitation to explain

Confidence scores cannot provide medical clearance. The original validation involved only 22 injured collegiate athletes.

What to discuss next

When the number and the medical assessment disagree, first check whether everyone is answering the same question. The medical team may mean modified practice while the athlete is picturing a full game, contact, fatigue and immediate form. Start with “When you answered these, what were you picturing yourself doing?” Then what they trust their body to do, and where that trust stops — an overall score hides specifics like cutting at speed or reacting to something unanticipated, and that gives the rehabilitation team something concrete. Low confidence with a reassuring exam still deserves attention: they may have symptoms they cannot describe, may not understand what the testing showed, or may need more exposure. Ask what in rehabilitation made them feel readier and what still feels untested. High confidence with a concerned medical team deserves the same curiosity — “What makes you feel ready?”, and privately, “What would another week out mean for you?” A roster spot, money, or letting teammates down all shape how someone weighs risk. Confidence cannot establish healing or override a restriction. When views still differ, get everyone including the athlete into one conversation, each saying what they have seen, what is uncertain and what would change their mind — with the athlete’s permission on what from your conversation is shared. End with a specific next step and what would prompt stopping. And check your own position: were you asked to help the athlete work through uncertainty, or has everyone decided your job is to get them to agree?

Open the questionnaire PDF Original validation study

One-page English form hosted by VBG. Glazer, J Athl Train 2009;44(2):185–189. Link only, no hosted copy.

Practical notes from the work

What we are seeing, what is useful, and what to be careful with. Occasional, not weekly.

From the founder

The Sports Psychiatry Institute grew out of a part of my professional life that I did not fully anticipate: how lonely this work could feel.

Over years of working in professional sport, I have often wanted to speak with a colleague who understood the setting before I began explaining the situation. Someone who knew what it meant to build trust with an athlete who worried about being seen using your service, or to make a careful clinical assessment within a schedule that kept moving. I wanted somewhere to turn for practical resources and an honest conversation about the decisions that come with this work. That experience stayed with me and eventually became the reason for founding this Institute.

Read the full note