Elsevier

Mayo Clinic Proceedings

Volume 68, Issue 10, October 1993, Pages 939-947
Mayo Clinic Proceedings

Competitive Athletes: Preinjury and Postinjury Mood State and Self-Esteem

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0025-6196(12)62265-4Get rights and content

In a prospective study, we determined whether preinjury and postinjury differences existed in the mood state and self-esteem of competitive athletes. The influence of severity of injury, gender, level of participation in sports, and type of sport on these dependent variables was also measured. Among 238 male and 38 female athletes from hockey, basketball, baseball, and volleyball teams, 36 sustained 43 injuries. Significant postinjury increases were noted for depression (P<0.0001) and anger (P = 0.0012), whereas vigor (P<0.0001) was significantly less after injury. When the 36 injuries were classified, 27 were minor or moderate (nonparticipation in sports for only one or two weekly assessments), and 9 were severe (nonparticipation for three or more weekly assessments). When a stepwise multiple regression equation was used to predict the scores for postinjury depression, the only significant predictor was the severity of injury (F = 8.48 [1, 34]; R2 = 0.30; P = 0.0063). Of the following physical and psychosocial variables—level of participation, type of sport, age, previous injury, preinjury stress, gender, mood state scales, and self-esteem—only level of participation (P<0.0001) and type of sport (P = 0.0004) were predictors of injury. The significant preinjury and postinjury differences in mood state suggest that postinjury mood disturbances reported in previous studies are likely attributable to the occurrence of injury, are related to the severity of injury, and do not merely reflect a disturbed preinjury mood.

Section snippets

Definition of Terms.

For this study, a competitive athlete was defined as one who was on (1) a high school varsity or junior varsity team, (2) a US Hockey League junior hockey team (seeking a scholarship), (3) a division I college team (most had received scholarships), or (4) a National Hockey League minor league team (players were dependent on this sport for their livelihood). An injured athlete was defined as an athlete who had sustained an injury as a consequence of participating in sports, exercise, or a game.

RESULTS

Because of a collection error, postinjury data were unavailable from the National Hockey League minor league team. Therefore, the professional team data (N = 21) were used for preinjury analyses only and were excluded from preinjury to-postinjury comparisons and from the multiple regression equations.

DISCUSSION

Significant differences were found in certain preinjury and postinjury mood states of competitive athletes—specifically, for the mood scales of depression, anger, and vigor, even when the Bonferroni correction was used to adjust for multiple comparisons. Furthermore, slight mean differences (Table 2) between all male study participants and the male athletes who became injured showed less preinjury depression and anger for those who later sustained an injury. The five female athletes who became

CONCLUSION

The current study incorporated several important features in its design. It was the first report of preinjury and postinjury emotional profiles of athletes determined with use of the same psychometric instrument. This multidisciplinary study was blinded to the primary investigator to eliminate bias in data measurement. Because team athletic trainers collected the data, athletes had no motivation to report responses in a manner pleasing or socially acceptable to the primary investigator.

Injured

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We thank Dr. Bernard F. Morrey, Dr. Thomas D. Rizzo, Jr., Dr. Gerard A. Malanga, and Dr. Hugh C. Smith and the athletic directors, coaches, and athletes who participated in this project. Athletic trainers Leah Wollenburg, Robert Broxterman, Roger Schipper, Kathy Czeh, Sally Shuster-Shoff, Lisa Cook, Hope Holly, and Will Fish also provided assistance. Michael Morrey and Linda S. Gentling assisted with data collection and data entry, and Connie Bruce organized the data.

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    This study was supported in part by Mayo Foundation.

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    Copyright © 1993 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.