Adherence to Sports-Injury Rehabilitation Programs

Abstract

In brief: Forty-one injured collegiate athletes completed a rehabilitation adherence questionnaire, addressing the following factors: perceived exertion, pain tolerance, self-motivation, support from significant others, scheduling, and environmental conditions. Multivariate analysis showed a significant difference between the athletes who adhered to their rehabilitation program and those who did not. Those who adhered reported that they (1) were more self-motivated, (2) tolerated pain better, (3) perceived that they worked harder at their rehabilitation, and (4) were less bothered by scheduling of sessions and environmental conditions of athletic training. Based on these findings, the authors suggest ways to enhance rehabilitation adherence.

Rehabilitation from sports injuries: from theory to practice

“…Self-motivated injured athletes were less likely to be deterred by outside factors that may have prevented attending rehabilitation sessions. Similarly, Fisher et al (5) found that injured adherents reported greater perseverance in their rehabilitation than non-adherents. Also, injured athletes who receive social support are more likely to adhere to their rehabilitation programme than the athletes who receive less support (5,19).…”

“…Similarly, Fisher et al (5) found that injured adherents reported greater perseverance in their rehabilitation than non-adherents. Also, injured athletes who receive social support are more likely to adhere to their rehabilitation programme than the athletes who receive less support (5,19). Future research should investigate the impact of gender, type of sport, and type of injury on adherence motivation using more homogenous samples with regard to the type of injury (16).…”

“…For these sports medicine/injury rehabilitation personnel, the goal is to return injured athletes to competition as safely and quickly as possible. The success of sport injury rehabilitation programmes is contingent on following the prescribed protocol (5). Accordingly, compliance with injury rehabilitation programmes has emerged as an area of interest in sports medicine and sport psychology.…”

Using a Multidimensional Approach to Predict Motivation and Adherence to Rehabilitation in Older Adults

“…The findings also suggest that higher adherence scores and PTs' first-week estimates of recovery have some predictive qualities on future recovery levels. Fisher et al 27 noted that college athletes who were deemed adherers in their sample tolerated pain better. In another study, adherers to rehabilitation were less concerned with occasional pain compared to those who did not adhere and who reported stopping once they felt pain.…”

“…Personal factors most commonly reported as affecting adherence rates include belief in efficacy of treatment, [23][24][25] selfmotivation, 23,[26][27][28][29][30][31] perceived social support, 23,27,32 pain tolerance, 27,29,32 emotional disturbance, 18,33 belief in ability to perform activities prescribed, 25 goal direction, 23 instrumental coping, 34 positive attitude, 30 perceived risks for future complications and long-term benefits, 25 success perceived to be related to controllable factors, 26 and perceived lack of time. 31 Environmental or situational factors most commonly reported as affecting adherence rates include clinical setting and scheduling, 27,31 communication, 28 therapists support and progression of exercises, 31 and rehabilitation professionals' expectancy of patient behavior. 25 To date, little has been done to try to incorporate this wealth of information to try to predict those who may be at risk for nonadherence.…”