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Coping strategies among long‐term injured competitive athletes. A study of 81 men and women in team and individual sports
Author(s) -
Johnson U.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of medicine and science in sports
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.575
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1600-0838
pISSN - 0905-7188
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0838.1997.tb00169.x
Subject(s) - athletes , competitive athletes , physical therapy , coping (psychology) , psychology , medicine , term (time) , team sport , clinical psychology , gerontology , physics , quantum mechanics
Differences in personality, mood and coping ability between athletes of a high competitive level with long‐term injuries ( n =81), with a mean age of 24.4 years, and a matched non‐injured group ( n =64), with a mean age of 24.2 years, were investigated. Three self‐rating scales were employed: mood adjective check‐list, general coping questionnaire and Karolinska scales of personality. Although no differences in basic personality traits were found, being injured was found to result in a depressed mood state and in the activation of coping strategies directed at receiving help. Comparisons were made between injured male and female athletes as well as between team‐sport and individual‐sport athletes. Women were found to become more anxious and tense and to have a stronger inclination to use emotion‐focused coping strategies. Team‐sport athletes were found to cope more in terms of ‘passive acceptance’ of help from others, whereas individual athletes were found to activate ‘problem‐solving’ strategies in face of a stressor. The results suggest that social aspects of rehabilitative work are important and support the concept that rehabilitative work with long‐ term injured athletes should be individualized to be maximally effective. They also support the usefulness of cognitive models of the injured athlete's experience of being long‐term injured. Such models, however, do not account for differences between the sexes or between individual and team athletes.