The Associations Among Social Support, Stress, and Life Satisfaction as Perceived by Injured College Athletes

Abstract

The relationships were examined among severity of injury, and participants' perceptions of stress, social support, and life satisfaction. Participants were 123 college athletes (male, n = 69, female n = 54) with minor (69) or severe (54) injuries, who ranged in age from 18 to 25 years. Participants completed measures of perceived social support, stress, and satisfaction with life. Greater perceived stress was associated with diminished life satisfaction for athletes with a major injury more than for those with a minor injury. The interaction between perceived stress and perceived social support was associated most with diminished life satisfaction for participants with a major injury.

Investigating the Prevalence and Risk Factors of Depression Symptoms among NCAA Division I Collegiate Athletes

“…This closely aligns with the findings of previous research [22,23,25,27,28,43]. However, new to this study was the statistically significant support for the hypothesis that athletes who were unable to practice or compete because of an injury suffered in the previous 6 months experienced more severe depression symptoms than those who were able to continue practicing.…”

“…However, it has been noted that athletes with greater restrictions regarding their physical activity at 3 months post injury report higher depression scale scores [23], suggesting an enduring nature to these feelings. Athletes with major injuries have also been shown to present with higher levels of perceived stress and lower overall life satisfaction than athletes with minor or no injuries [27]. This finding strongly suggests that injury is a risk factor in the development of depressive symptoms, possibly at clinically significant levels, and particularly during the early stages of recovery.…”

“…Existing research has identified significant factors unique to college athletes that may lead to the development of depression in college athletes, such as increased daily stressors [13,15,41], injury [22,23,25,27,42,43], overreliance on athletic identity [28,30], and fear of failure [14,35,36,45]. Existing research has also pointed to a lack of awareness regarding available mental health care among college students [37], and this, combined with the stigma that exists regarding mental health issues in athletics [11], may further contribute to college athlete's risk of developing depression.…”

“…A variety of scholarship levels were observed, with 24.9% of participants receiving full scholarship (n = 237), 47.6% receiving partial scholarship (n = 452), 27.4% with no scholarship (n = 260), and one unreported case. 45.5% reported their sport as being off-season (n = 432) and 55.5% reported currently being in season (n = 518).…”

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

“…Si bien algunos indican que una mayor red de apoyo social del deportista, minimiza el riesgo que éste tiene de sufrir lesión deportiva (Hardy, Richman y Rosenfeld, 1991;Johnson e Ivarsson, 2011;Petrie et al, 2014), otros estudios no establecieron ninguna relación entre estos factores (Malinauskas, 2010;Rees, Mitchel, Evans y Hardy, 2010). Quizá, la inconsistencia de estos resultados probablemente sea debida a que el papel mediador del apoyo social es más complejo que el propuesto inicialmente en el modelo de Andersen y Williams (1988).…”