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In many instances, professional sport is a lucrative livelihood in which athletes are paid commercially competitive salaries. Injuries are costly financially and personally to competitors and their employers, and may impact career longevity. This is particularly relevant to professional sports, such as rugby union (rugby), that require a significant level of physical contact and in which a relatively high number of injuries occur. For example, Schwellnus et al.[1] suggested that per season, 55% of Super Rugby players experience injuries that require more than one week of rest and rehabilitation before they re-enter competition. Hence, evidence-based biopsychosocial injury information that can inform effective recovery protocols is sought after within the rugby environment. Professional rugby players can be affected physically, psychologically and financially by severe rugby injury (SRI).[2] SRI is defined by Fuller et al.[3] in their consensus statement on injury definitions in rugby union as a career-related injury that requires more than 28 days’ physical recovery.[3] Although, historically speaking, research around the effects of SRI revolved around physical aspects,[2] a description of the psychological components of rugby career-related stressors have also evolved. For example, Nicholls et al.[6] reported that injury risk was the main stressor experienced by professional Heineken Cup rugby players during the 2004 season. More recently, studies aimed at understanding psychosocial sequelae associated with SRI have emerged,[4,5] indicating that these issues can negatively affect both effective physical recovery and playing form.[2,4] Arvinen-Barrow et al.[2] found that the majority of professional rugby players will experience at least one SRI during their careers, and that it is considered a significant stressor. According to these authors, as well as more recent researchers,[7] SRI includes negative psychosocial concomitants that can affect the individual across multiple facets of their lifeworld. Additionally, the results of research aimed at understanding the negative psychosocial consequences of SRI allude to a variety of biopsychosocial experiences that can be considered as traumatic, including the oftentimes stage-wise progression of the traumatic experience.[8] The recognition of an SRI experience as being traumatic could assist in the development of integrated, evidence-based and effective SRI recovery protocols. A traumatic event includes the ‘exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence’.[9] The effect of a traumatic event may incorporate psychological ramifications, such as a sudden sense of helplessness or the loss of control of one’s ability to feel safe or secure within one’s own body and/or the outside world.[10] Psychologically, trauma can be viewed as a situation or an event that shatters a person’s basic assumptions about themselves and the world they live in.[11] For the purposes of this research, an SRI is considered as a traumatic event, which has threatened the anatomical integrity of a competitor. Therefore, a traumatic rugby injury (TRI) is an SRI that consists of its related physical, psychological, social, financial, and career-impacting Background: Historically, non-career-ending traumatic rugby injury (TRI) has been viewed from a predominantly biological perspective. However, dimensional perspectives, such as the biopsychosocial model, have highlighted the need to incorporate psychosocial understandings of TRI into treatment plans. Aim: To describe the lived experiences of a cohort of traumatically injured South African Super Rugby players in order to add to the body of literature on the subject of TRI experience. Methods: The employment of a qualitative, descriptive phenomenological method was used to achieve the research outcome. Discussion: Common descriptive themes indicated that TRI seems to exist within three stages: the initial, emotional and subsequent reactions to the traumatic injury. Sub-themes described within each stage included attempts at remaining positive and appraising the severity of the injury during onset, fear responses and concomitant feelings of loss related to foregone career opportunities during the emotional reactions stage, the employment of coping mechanisms, and relying on specific support structures during subsequent reactions. Two novel experiences revealed within this study and not reported in the international literature included the injured players’ reliance on compartmentalisation and positive religious belief structures as coping strategies. All themes were reduced to descriptive phenomenological essences that describe a lifeworld or biopsychosocial experience of TRI. Conclusion: Themes drawn from this study can be applied in the future design and implementation of expanded studies and psychological interventions aimed at assisting traumatically injured rugby players during their recovery process. The identified themes affirm aspects from the international literature while highlighting some uniquely South African outcomes.

South African professional Super Rugby players’ lived experiences of career-related traumatic injuries: A descriptive phenomenological analysis