Athletes' use of mental skills during sport injury rehabilitation.
J Sport Rehabil
; 24(2): 189-97, 2015 May.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-25558960
ABSTRACT
CONTEXT Existing theoretical frameworks and empirical research support the applicability and usefulness of integrating mental skills throughout sport injury rehabilitation. OBJECTIVE:
To determine what, if any, mental skills athletes use during injury rehabilitation, and by who these skills were taught. Cross-cultural differences were also examined.DESIGN:
Cross-sectional design.SETTING:
College athletes from 5 universities in the United States and a mixture of collegiate, professional, and recreational club athletes from the United Kingdom and Finland were recruited for this study.PARTICIPANTS:
A total of 1283 athletes from the United States, United Kingdom, and Finland, who participated in diverse sports at varying competitive levels took part in this study. MAIN OUTCOMEMEASURES:
As part of a larger study on athletes' expectations of injury rehabilitation, participants were asked a series of open-ended and closed-ended questions concerning their use of mental skills during injury rehabilitation.RESULTS:
Over half (64.0%) of the sample reported previous experience with athletic training, while 27.0% indicated that they used mental skills during injury rehabilitation. The top 3 mental skills reported were goal setting, positive self-talk/positive thoughts, and imagery. Of those athletes that used mental skills, 71.6% indicated that they felt mental skills helped them to rehabilitate faster. A greater proportion of athletes from the United States (33.4%) reported that they used mental skills during rehabilitation compared with athletes from the United Kingdom (23.4%) and Finland (20.3%). A small portion (27.6%) of the participants indicated that their sports medicine professional had taught them how to use mental skills; only 3% were taught mental skills by a sport psychologist.CONCLUSIONS:
The low number of athletes who reported using mental skills during rehabilitation is discouraging, but not surprising given research findings that mental skills are underutilized by injured athletes in the 3 countries examined. More effort should be focused on educating and training athletes, coaches, and sports medicine professionals on the effectiveness of mental training in the injury rehabilitation context.
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Traumatismos em Atletas
/
Cognição
/
Atletas
Tipo de estudo:
Observational_studies
/
Prevalence_studies
/
Qualitative_research
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limite:
Adolescent
/
Adult
/
Child
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
País/Região como assunto:
America do norte
/
Europa
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2015
Tipo de documento:
Article