Adolescent health briefCoping with sports injuries: an examination of the adolescent athlete☆
Section snippets
procedures
After obtaining Institutional Review Board approval, we screened all injured 15- to 18-year-olds seen at our institution between May 2000 and February 2001. Athletes who would be out of sports for at least 3 weeks (this cut-off was chosen because it was believed that a shorter period would not significantly affect emotional outcomes) were approached. After consent forms were signed, adolescents completed questionnaires in a quiet area away from parent(s).
Follow-up information was obtained
Results
Repeated measures analyses of variance revealed a significant drop in depression scores over time [F(3,47) = 3.89, p = .01], with significant decreases occurring from injury onset to 6 weeks (t = 3.16, df = 47, p = .003), and from onset to 12 weeks (t = 3.21, df = 47, p = .002). When a cut-off for mild-moderate depression was implemented (scores > 15), 27% (n = 13) of the adolescents scored in the moderately depressed range at injury onset. The number of adolescents exceeding the cut-point
Discussion
Depression scores at injury onset in this study were about one point higher than those obtained in a previous study of high school students [10]. Although not a large difference, earlier research has shown that sports-involved adolescents tend to be less depressed [11] and have greater emotional well-being 1, 2 than adolescents in general. Therefore, the depressive symptom scores in the present sample may be more significant than they seem.
Although limited by the lack of preinjury depression
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This research was aided by pilot funding from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine Intramural Research Support Committee.