Beyond the either-or: Athlete mental health requires collaborative, multidisciplinary approaches

We commend Yamaguchi [1] for stimulating discussion on the role of sports psychiatry in athlete mental health care.Their Perspective appropriately emphasizes clinical expertiseincluding diagnostic formulation, medication management, and return-to-play decisionsand notes contextual factors such as cultural norms and stigma.However, some claims merit further consideration, particularly suggestions that epidemiologists and population-level screening approaches have "no room", and that IOC-endorsed screening tools such as the Sports Mental Health Assessment Tool (SMHAT) are unsuitable across cultures.We argue for a collaborative model integrating clinical care, epidemiology, education, and cultural adaptation (Table 1).In this commentary, multidisciplinary refers to coordinated contributions from multiple professions.Table 1 summarises roles including sports psychiatrists and notes epidemiology as cross-cutting, not a clinical step.