A previous cross-sectional study, investigated the prevalence of OA and anxiety and depression via questionnaires, which were sent to 515 former professional football players in the UK . A total of 284 players participated by returning the questionnaire (response rate 55 %), from which 138 (49 %) reported a diagnosis with OA on at least one site . Significantly more respondents with OA reported problems with anxiety/depression than those without OA: 37 % of the participants with OA reported problems on the questionnaire dimension anxiety/depression compared to 19 % of the participants of the group without OA (χ2 = 10.48, df = 1, p = 0.001) . Similar results were found in our study; namely that 31 % of the former elite athletes with OA reported problems related to anxiety/depression compared to 25 % of the former elite athletes without OA. As far as we know, this cross-sectional study is the first international study to explore the association of OA and symptoms of CMD among a large group of former elite athletes from different sports.