Well-Come Back! Professional Basketball Players Perceptions of Psychosocial and Behavioral Factors Influencing a Return to Pre-injury Levels

Abstract

The psychological factors influencing a return to sport has gained increased research attention. In the current investigation, we explored professional basketball players’ perceptions of the psychosocial and behavioral factors facilitating a return to performance equal to or exceeding previous performance standards. We also sought to describe athletes’ experiences – both positive and negative – of returning to sport following injury recovery. Ten Italian professional male basketball players (age range 22–36 years), were retrospectively interviewed in relation to three time-periods: (1) from the commencement of rehabilitation to their first official competition, (2) the first official competition, and (3) the 6-months following the initial competition. Qualitative content analysis of the data revealed numerous themes across the three time periods. In regards to Period 1, participants indicated that social support, investment in rehabilitation and training programs, coping skills and motivation were fundamental in reaching pre-injury performance levels. During their first official game (i.e., Period 2), athletes reported that realistic performance expectations, focusing on the performance, positive emotions, motivation, arousal and social support facilitated their return to sport. Athletes, however, also described a predominance of factors that hindered their return to pre- injury levels (i.e., low confidence in personal abilities, decrements in skill execution and dysfunctional physical sensations). Moreover, participants typically described a substandard level of performance during their first competition back following injury. In recounting experiences during the 6 months following their first official game, basketballers reported improvements in skill execution and highlighted the importance of coping skills, motivation and social support. The process of restoring self-confidence in one’s ability to successfully perform was perceived as crucial in enabling participants to move beyond a mere return to sport to a return to high performance – that is, to reach a level of proficiency equal to or exceeding previous performance standards. Findings support the relevance of cognitive, emotional and behavioral responses highlighted in the Integrated Model and suggest the importance of addressing psychological factors throughout the return-to-sport process. Finally, results from the present study hold a number of practical implications for athletes’ aiming to achieve a return to pre-injury levels.

Athletes and adversities: athletic identity and emotional regulation in time of COVID-19

“…The excellent fit that emerged for the Italian version of the AIMS extends further the cross-cultural validity of this instrument, giving new possibilities for sport specific research in the Italian context. Second, findings highlight some practical implications to be considered when working with athletes during this period of isolation or in similar periods, such as illness or injury, in which athletes experience a variety of psychological features [33]. For example, the fact that athletes with higher Athletic Identity tend to ruminate and catastrophize more during this particular period, could suggest helping them to reduce their identification with their athletic role.…”

“…Although there are some analogies with injury situations, the period of COVID-19 lockdown has its peculiarities. For injured athletes, for example, it is important the support normally received from family, friends, teammates, and peers [33]. However, this social support could have been lacking over this period of isolation.…”

Identifying Factors Influencing the Martial Arts Athletes’ Performance

“…This has been pointed out that the martial arts complexity possibly faces great difficulties to merge the influencing performance variables [4]. Hence, [5] believed that athletes will be realistic in indicating their expectations, focusing on the performance, positive emotions, motivation, arousal and social supports. This belief addresses the positively global self-esteem that contributes sense of sport-confidence and achievement motivation, setting goals and psychological readiness [6] as indicated among the martial arts athletes.…”

Competence and Benevolence as Dimensions of Trust: Lecturers’ Trustworthiness in the Words of Italian Students

“…This way, we were also able to compare the relative distribution of the text units for each subcategory across the two data corpora: the one emerging from the prompt-word "competence" and the one from the prompt-word "benevolence." This data analysis strategy linking both qualitative and quantitative results is quite common in social psychology research [46][47][48].…”