Date of Graduation

2004

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

Objective. To determine the influence of psychosocial mediators on injury in college athletes, and to compare psychosocial data to orthopedic screening data for prediction of injury. We hypothesized that athletes with high life stress, high competitive anxiety, and low coping skills would incur more days missed due to injury, and that orthopedic data would be similar to psychosocial data in its ability to predict injury. Design and setting. Multiple regression was used to determine the effect of predictor variables on the criterion at a NCAA division II college. Subjects. A sample of 177 athletes representing six NCAA sports. Measurements. The Life Events Survey for College Athletes (LESCA), Athletic Coping Skills Inventory-28 (ACSI-28), Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS), and the institution's orthopedic screening instrument were used. Results. Multiple regression revealed significant relationships between negative life stress (b = .284, p < .001), somatic anxiety (b = .165, p < .05), and concentration disruption (b = −.160, p < .05) and days missed due to injury. The orthopedic screening score was not significant in predicting injury. Conclusions. These findings support previous research on the stress-injury relationship. The fact that the orthopedic screening measure was not able to predict injury time loss is of interest to the field because this is a commonly used assessment of injury predisposition and until validated with further research cannot be assumed to be a reliable predictor of injury.

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