gms | German Medical Science

Objective: A hypothesis amongst the sporting community is that certain personality types are more likely to become injured more frequently than others. The purpose of this study was to ascertain if this hypothesis is true, as well as to extract psychological variables which tend to predict occurrence and severity, to use them to create a profile for those most probable to become injured within the cohort, and to extrapolate from this methods which would allow for the prevention of injury.

Material/Methods: A prospective cohort study was performed. The participants were Irish and Cypriot, male and female recruits to the Irish Permanent Defence Forces Cadet School (n=28). Information from participants was gathered using validated questionnaires to assess potential psychological antecedents to injury. Dynamic physiological data to quantify responses to physical stress was also measured in the participants. Information on injuries sustained throughout a training period of over 3,000 participant hours was also collected prospectively. The above information was tabulated and concordance analyses performed. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) as well as linear regression analysis of the hypothesis, with the dependent variable injury in order to find injury predictors. This information was used for a logistic regression. Logistic regression was used to show how a large group of cadets could be successfully predicted as injured or non-injured, according to the results from the linear regression.

Results: Psychological predictors of injuries trending towards significance were identified including life event stress and ineffective coping. These categories alone could account for the frequency and severity of injury in almost 80% of instances. Similarly these factors and others when combined offer a psychological signature which profiles those at least risk of sustaining considerable injuries in this training environment.

Conclusion: There is much interest in the pathogenesis of sports injuries. Physiological predictors have attracted the lions share of attention, however these factors are not always readily amenable to correction in the context of sports injury prevention. This study suggests which psychological factors are significantly involved in sports injury prediction; these psychological factors have been shown to be amenable to modification through behavioural therapy techniques. Thus this work suggests non-invasive techniques to reduce injury incidence amongst Irish and Cypriot recruits in the Irish Cadet School.