Based on multiple factors, like social support, will determine the psychological factors of the individual. Without a positive social support or proper rehabilitation, the athlete’s self-confidence and anxiety of reinjury will decrease.
If there is a significant negative life stress and negative social support, athletes develop more serious injuries, become absent from daily life, and miss games or practice (Petrie, 1993). Spano (2008) explains that 80% of the population will have symptoms of clinical depression some time along their lifespan. A study conducted by William (2000) explains that injuries are 2-5 times for likely to happen in athlete’s that have high levels of life-event stress compared to athletes with lower levels of life-event stress.
When it comes to injury, most individuals focus on the physical stressors compared to the psychological stressors. The reason physical stressors are more of a concern to people is because they cause threats to the athlete’s ability to play where psychological stressors are caused my physical stressors, altering the way the body works, change the way the athlete value’s themselves, health, and short or long-term consequences from the impact of the stressor (Lovallo, 2016).
To try and avoid these stressors, the athlete might go through a fight-or-flight response to protect themselves by fighting harmful situations (Lovallo, 2016). Depending on the athlete’s history of stressors will correlate how they handle stress response, personality, and coping skills to the injury (Ray & Wiese-Bjornstal, 1999).
To prevent the prevalence of psychological distress, there needs to be an understanding of emotion and behavior responses of the injured athlete by the health provider that is evaluating the athlete for a full and successful recovery (Madrigal & Gill, 2014).
Written by:
Sarah Grippi
Director of Basketball Mindset
References:
Lovallo (2016). Stress & health: Biological and psychological interactions. (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications
Madrigal, L., & Gill, D. (2014). Psychological responses of division I female athletes throughout injury recovery: A case study approach. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 8, 276–298. doi:10.1123/jcsp.2014-0034 http://dx.doi.Org/10.1123/jcsp.2014-0034
Petrie, T. A. (1993). The moderating effects of social support and playing status on the life stress-injury relationship. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 5(1), 1-16. doi:10.1080/10413209308411301
Ray, R. & Weise-Bjornstal, D. (1999). Counseling in sports medicine (Eds). Champaign: Human Kinetics Publishers.
Spano, J.L. (March, 2008). Impact of life stressors on athletes. Athletic Therapy Today, 13(2), 42-43.
Williams, J. (November, 2000). How to identify and prevent injuries resulting from psychosocial factors. Athletic Therapy Today. 5(6), 36-37.