Evaluation of the Psychological Effects of Sports Injuries

Abstract

Aim: Since sports injuries not only negatively affect the physical health and integrity of the athlete, but also negatively affect the psychological state, it is an issue that should be emphasized. There are findings in the literature that athletes who experience sports injuries mostly experience anger, depression, anxiety, lack of self-confidence and fear of re-injury. It is thought that the experience of the athlete in the post-injury treatment process may also affect his return to sports and his performance. For this reason, the aim of the research is to examine in depth how the athletes who experience sports injuries experience the process and their psychological states while their treatment continues. Methods: In this study, document analysis, which is a part of the phenomenological design, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was used. The sample of the study consists of 10 athletes who were students of a State University in the 2021-2022 academic year, which was determined by easily accessible situation sampling, and who had serious sports injuries and whose treatment continues. In order to interpret the experiences of the athletes during the post-injury treatment process, the analysis of the diaries recorded by them was used. Inductive document analysis was used to analyze the logs. Results: As a result of the document analysis, six themes were reached from the experiences of the athletes who had serious sports injuries, such as blaming, impatience, perceiving the injury as serious, fear that performance would be affected, pressure to return to training, and self-impact. Conclusions: The results of the study revealed that medical treatment alone is not sufficient for athletes who have suffered serious sports injuries to return to active sports, and psychological support is also required. At this point, it is recommended that the athletes in the medical treatment process who have serious sports injuries should be supported by their coaches, friends and families, taking into account the themes obtained in our study, as well as encouraging them to receive psychological support.