Onrise Clinical Outcomes Report 2025

Onrise Clinical Outcomes Report 2025

Prepared by the Onrise Clinical Team | Reporting Period: 2024–2025 Academic and Professional Season

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report presents outcomes data from Onrise’s mental health programs delivered to collegiate and professional athletes during the 2024–2025 season. Across all partner organizations, athletes demonstrated clinically significant reductions in anxiety and depression symptoms, high rates of self-reported improvement, and strong engagement with both peer support and clinical care services. Partner organizations retained Onrise services at a rate of 100%, reflecting sustained organizational confidence in the program’s value. These findings support the effectiveness of an integrated, athlete-centered mental health model and offer meaningful evidence for athletic departments evaluating mental health investment.

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ABOUT ONRISE

Onrise provides peer support and clinical mental health care designed specifically for the competitive athlete. The program serves athletes across NCAA Division I, Division II, and Division III programs, as well as NAIA institutions, and extends into professional sports through partnerships with organizations affiliated with the MLBPA, MLS, and PWHL. Onrise’s model pairs same-day access to trained peer supporters with licensed clinical care and 24/7 crisis availability, creating a continuum of support that meets athletes where they are — both in their schedules and in the severity of their needs.

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MEASUREMENT APPROACH

Onrise tracks clinical outcomes using two validated, widely recognized instruments: the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4) and the Patient Global Impression of Change (PGIC) scale.

The PHQ-4 is a brief, four-question screening tool that measures the frequency of anxiety and depressive symptoms over the preceding two weeks. Each item is scored on a scale of zero to three, yielding a total score ranging from zero to twelve. Scores are categorized as follows: zero to two indicates minimal distress, three to five mild distress, six to eight moderate distress, and nine to twelve severe distress. The PHQ-4 is among the most widely used and clinically validated screening tools in behavioral health, valued for its efficiency and reliability in high-volume settings — making it well suited to athletic environments where time is at a premium.

The PGIC is a single-item, patient-reported measure that asks individuals to rate how their overall condition has changed since beginning care. Response options range from “very much worse” to “very much improved.” A rating of “much improved” or better is generally accepted in clinical literature as a meaningful threshold for treatment response, reflecting not just statistical change but the athlete’s own perception that their quality of life has substantively shifted.

Athletes completed the PHQ-4 at intake and at regular intervals throughout the program, with check-ins conducted at a minimum of every thirty days for athletes engaged in ongoing clinical care. Peer support participants were monitored through structured touchpoints designed to identify escalating need and facilitate timely clinical referrals when appropriate.

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CLINICAL OUTCOMES: ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION

The primary clinical finding of this reporting period is a mean PHQ-4 score reduction of 4.53 points across all athletes who completed both an intake and at least one follow-up assessment. To understand why this number matters, it helps to consider what it represents in terms of real symptom change.

Athletes entering Onrise’s program presented with a mean intake PHQ-4 score consistent with the moderate distress range — a level of anxiety and depressive symptomology that research associates with impaired concentration, disrupted sleep, reduced motivation, and compromised emotional regulation. These are not abstract clinical categories; in athletic contexts, they translate directly to performance degradation, strained team relationships, and elevated risk of injury and burnout.

A reduction of 4.53 points is not a marginal shift. Published clinical guidance generally identifies a two-point change on the PHQ-4 as the minimum threshold for clinical significance. The reductions observed among Onrise athletes were more than twice that threshold, representing movement from moderate to minimal distress ranges on average. Put plainly, athletes who entered the program struggling were leaving it in a meaningfully different — and measurably healthier — place.

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ATHLETE-REPORTED IMPROVEMENT

Quantitative symptom data tells an important story, but it is incomplete without the athlete’s own voice. The PGIC data collected during this period adds that dimension. Eighty percent of athletes who completed a PGIC assessment at follow-up rated their overall condition as “much improved” or better. This figure is notable not only for its magnitude but for what it reflects: athletes themselves recognized a meaningful difference in how they were functioning and feeling.

In behavioral health research, alignment between clinician-measured outcomes and patient-reported experience is considered a strong indicator of genuine treatment efficacy. The convergence of significant PHQ-4 reductions and high PGIC ratings in Onrise’s data suggests that the improvements athletes experienced were not simply numerical — they were felt.

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RETENTION AND ORGANIZATIONAL SATISFACTION

Partner organizations renewed their Onrise programs at a rate of 100% during this reporting period. This figure encompasses athletic departments and professional organizations across all competitive levels served, from small NAIA programs to major professional leagues. Retention at this scale reflects more than satisfaction with a vendor relationship. It reflects institutional confidence that Onrise’s model is delivering genuine value — to athletes, to athletic staff, and to the broader organizational mission.

Athletic administrators consistently cite three factors in their continued partnership decisions: the credibility of Onrise’s clinical team, the accessibility of same-day peer support as a bridge to formal care, and the security of knowing that 24/7 crisis resources are available when the unexpected occurs. These structural features reduce the burden on coaching and athletic training staff while ensuring that no athlete is left waiting when they need help most.

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IMPLICATIONS FOR ATHLETIC DEPARTMENTS

The data in this report carries a straightforward message for athletic departments weighing investment in mental health infrastructure: structured, measurable programming works, and athletes respond to it.

Mental health support that produces a clinically significant reduction in anxiety and depression — validated by both standardized instruments and athlete self-report — is not a wellness amenity. It is a performance and retention strategy with documented outcomes. Departments that provide athletes with immediate access to peer support, sustained clinical care, and crisis resources are not simply meeting a growing expectation. They are actively reducing risk, supporting performance, and building the kind of institutional trust that athletes remember long after their eligibility ends.

Onrise remains committed to transparent outcome reporting as a core part of its partnership model. We believe athletic administrators deserve the same quality of evidence for mental health investments that they expect in any other area of athletic program development, and these findings reflect our ongoing commitment to providing it.

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For more information about Onrise programs, partnership structures, or this outcomes data, please contact the Onrise clinical and partnership team directly.