THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ATHLETIC INJURIES:Personality Factors, Coping Resources

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Sport Psychology(psy407)

Lesson 44

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ATHLETIC INJURIES

Physical factors such as overtraining, equipment failure, and poor playing conditions are believed to be the

major factors contributing to athletic injuries. Psychological factors play an important role in the incidence,

prevention, and rehabilitation of athletic injuries.

In addressing the important subject of the psychology of athletic injuries, three main sections have been

prepared. These include:

1. Psychological predictors of athletic injuries

2. Athlete response to injury and rehabilitation

3. Other considerations

Psychological Predictors of Athletic Injury

It stands to reason that if researchers can identify psychological factors associated with the occurrence of

injuries, steps can be taken to reduce the number and severity of those that do occur. Any cognitive

appraisal that leads to the stress response puts the athlete at risk for injury. Factors that impact the stress

response include personality of the athlete, history of stressors, coping resources, and potential

interventions.

Physiological/Attentional Changes

Stressful athletic situation

Cognitive Appraisals

Injury

Four others factors moderate the relationship between a potentially stressful athletic situation and an injury.

These four factors include:

Personality of the athlete

History of stressor

Coping resources available to the athlete

Interventions

Personality Factors

Personality factors include hardiness, locus of control, sense of coherence, competitive trait anxiety, and

intrinsic motivation.

History of Stressor

Factors incorporated under the category of history of stressors include stressful life events, daily hassles,

and previous injuries.

a. Life stress and daily hassles

Relationship between stressful life events and increased illness is extended to the athletic domain. The more

life stress the athlete experiences, the greater is the incidence and severity of athletic injury.

b. Previous Injury

Athletes who are worried about the recurrence of an injury, or about whether or not they have fully

recovered from a previous injury, are vulnerable to further injury.

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Coping Resources

Coping resources available to the athlete include general coping behavior, social support, stress management

techniques, attentional strategy, and prescribed or self-prescribed medication.

Coping Behavior

Any behavior that assists an individual in dealing with a stressful situation is considered to be a coping

behavior.

Social Support

Social support is one of the important coping resources available to athlete to reduce the debilitating effect

of the stress response. Individuals and groups that provide social support for the athlete include parents,

friends, coach, teammates, fraternity/sorority, clubs, and religious groups.

Stress Management Techniques

Many athletes utilize stress management and cognitive intervention techniques as coping strategies for

controlling the stress response. Research has demonstrated that effective education in the stress response is

associated with a reduction in the number and severity of injuries sustained by athletes.

Attentional Strategy

A coping resource available to distance runners is attentional strategy. Research shows that the dissociative

strategy of running is associated with less incidence of injury.

Medication

Many drugs have the ability to influence the stress response, and thus the probability of injury. All these

psychological effects have the potential to reduce the coping resources of the athlete.

Interventions

One set of intervention seeks to change the cognitive appraisal of potentially stressful events, while the

second seeks to modify the physiological/attentional aspects of the stress response. Cognitive appraisal

might be changed by rethinking how one plan to address a particularly stressful situation.

Psychological/attentional aspects might be modified through progressive realization and imagery.

Psychological Response to Injury and Rehabilitation

Factors associated with an athlete's psychological response to injury and follow-up rehabilitation occurs

after the injury has occurred. It is composed of cognitive appraisal, emotional response, and behavioral

response.

Cognitive and Emotional Response to Injury

The psychological response to injury includes both cognitive appraisal and emotional response.

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Sport Psychology(psy407)

Cognitive Appraisal

Cognitive appraisal helps determine the athlete's emotional response to injury. Most research in cognitive

appraisal has focused upon the athlete's perception of self-esteem and self-worth following a serious sport

injury.

Emotional Response

Emotional responses include:

Fear of the unknown

Feelings of tension, anger, and depression

Frustration and boredom associated with being injured

Negative attitude

Grief associated with an injury

Emotional coping skills

Behavioral Response to Injury

The third factor leading to injury recovery, and associated with cognitive and emotional response, is the

behavioral response of the athlete to injury. The primary focus of research in the area of behavioral

response to injury has been upon adherence to injury rehabilitation, coping and intervention, and pain

management.

Adherence to Injury Rehabilitation

In order for an injury rehabilitation program to be successful, it is believed that the athlete must adhere to

the program. Thus, adherence to sport injury rehabilitation programs has emerged as a very important area

of study. Predictors of injury rehabilitation adherence are personal factors and situational factors. Personal

factors related to adherence include pain tolerance, tough-mindedness (e.g., self-assurance, assertiveness,

independence), and goal perspective.

Situational factors most closely related to adherence include:

a) Belief in the efficacy of treatment procedures

b) Comfort of the rehabilitation clinical environment

c) Convenience of rehabilitation program scheduling

Coping and Intervention

Coping skills possessed by the athlete, and cognitive-behavioral interventions (applied by others or the

athlete) are effective in enhancing adherence to injury rehabilitation programs

Pain Management

Pain tolerance is a personality characteristic. Individuals with a low tolerance to pain may have a more

difficult time going through the stages of the sport injury recovery process. Performance pain can be

differentiated from injury pain. Performance pain is controlled by the athlete and is associated with

improved performance and a sense of accomplishment.

Conversely, injury pain is not controlled by the athlete and may be of either the acute or the chronic variety.

Acute pain is due to a trauma to the body and is intense and short in duration. Conversely, chronic pain is

long lasting, is uncomfortable, continues long after the initial injury, and is very complex in its origin. Pain

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can also be categorized as benign or harmful. Benign pain is generally short in duration and is not associated

with swelling and soreness. Conversely, harmful pain is present before and after exertion and is associated

with swelling, tenderness, and prolonged soreness.

Pain associated with an athletic injury is managed through a combination of pharmacological (prescription

drug) and nonpharmacological approaches. Pharmacological pain management strategies are often needed

short term. Nonpharmacological pain management strategies are classified as being of the pain-reduction or

the pain-focusing variety.

Other Considerations

Rehabilitation Personnel with Psychological Expertise

There are two basic approaches to providing sport injury rehabilitation: the distributed approach and the

specialist approach. In the distributed approach, is to make sure that all concerned receive training in sport

psychology applications. The specialist approach is to employ a fulltime sport psychologist. In the specialist

approach, the sport psychologist works with injured athletes requiring psychological services.

Benefits Associated with Sustaining and Recovering from an Athletic Injury

While it is generally assumed that nothing good comes from an athletic injury, this may not be entirely true.

Evidence suggests that successful recovery from an athletic injury is associated with several benefits:

Personal growth

Psychologically based performance enhancement

Increase in self-efficacy, mental toughness, and personal motivation

Physical and technical development benefits associated with injury/recovery experience

General health improvement

References

Cox, H. Richard. (2002). Sport Psychology: Concepts and Applications. (Fifth Edition). New York:

McGraw-Hill Companies

Lavallec. D., Kremer, J., Moran, A., & Williams. M. (2004) Sports Psychology: Contemporary Themes. New

York: Palgrave Macmillan Publishers

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