Social Support Patterns of Collegiate Athletes Before and After Injury

Abstract

Context: Social support has been identified as an important factor in facilitating recovery from injury. However, no previous authors have prospectively assessed the change in social support patterns before and after injury. Objective: To examine the preinjury and postinjury social support patterns among male and female collegiate athletes. Design: Prospective observational study. Setting: A Big Ten Conference university. Patients or Other Participants: A total of 256 National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I male and female collegiate athletes aged 18 or older from 13 sports teams. Main Outcome Measure(s): Injury incidence was identified using the Sports Injury Monitoring System. Social support was measured using the 6-item Social Support Questionnaire. Data on preinjury and postinjury social support patterns were compared. Results: Male athletes reported more sources of social support than female athletes, whereas female athletes had greater satisfaction with the support they received. Athletes' social support patterns changed after they became injured. Injured athletes reported relying more on coaches (P = .003), athletic trainers (P < .0001), and physicians (P = .003) for social support after they became injured. Athletes also reported greater postinjury satisfaction with social support received from friends (P = .019), coaches (P = .001), athletic trainers (P < .0001), and physicians (P = .003). Conclusions: Our findings identify an urgent need to better define the psychosocial needs of injured athletes and also strongly suggest that athletic trainers have a critical role in meeting these needs.

Taking a Timeout to Ensure Well-Being: Social Work Involvement in College Sports

“…The ultimate goal of systems theory is to develop a caring community and to promote active partnerships (Turner, 1996). College athletes that experience injuries report that proper utilization of their support systems allow them to cope with their emotions (Johnston & Carroll, 1998;Wrisberg & Fisher, 2005;Yang, Peek-Asa, Lowe, Heiden, & Foster, 2010). The same could very well be true for college athletes experiencing psychosocial risks.…”

Untitled

“…Focusing specifically on the literature in sports, Yang et al (2010) showed that female college athletes tend to rely more on friends for social support when recovering from injuries than do male athletes. As previously mentioned, Hagiwara and Isogai (2013) found that Japanese female athletes showed a stronger relationship between social support from significant others (e.g., family or friends) and continuing competitive sports participation than did male athletes.…”

“…Such social support provider benefits may accrue to females in particular as females provide more social support to significant others than do males (Fukuoka, 1999). These findings may be specifically applicable to intercollegiate student-athletes as social support has been found to be a significant factor that reduces mental health problems related to continuing sports activities among females (Booth, Bauman, Owen, & Gore, 1997;Yang, Peek-Asa, Lowe, Heiden, & Foster, 2010).…”

Análisis de la relación entre apoyo social y lesiones en futbolistas federados

“…En relación al tema que nos compete, el apoyo social es una de las variables de los recursos de afrontamiento de los deportistas que atendiendo al modelo de Andersen y Williams (1988) modera la relación estrés-lesión (Yang, Peek-Asa, Lowe, Heiden y Foster, 2010;. Algunos estudios proporcionaron resultados que sostenían que la familia fue la fuente más importante de apoyo social (Petrie et al, 2014;Covassin et al, 2014).…”