COPING SKILLS, COMPETITIVE TRAIT ANXIETY, AND PLAYING STATUS - MODERATING EFFECTS ON THE LIFE STRESS, INJURY RELATIONSHIP

This study prospectively investigated the effects of life stress, psyc hological coping skills, competitive trait anxiety, and playing status (starter vs. nonstarter) on injury in 158 NCAA Division I-A collegiat e football players. Playing status moderated the influence of the psyc hosocial variables as predictors of athletic injury. For starters posi tive life stress, coping skills, and competitive trait anxiety account ed for 60% of the injury variance. In addition, competitive trait anxi ety moderated the effects of positive life stress such that increases in these variables were associated with increases in the number of day s missed due to injury. No relationship between any of the psychosocia l variables and injury emerged for nonstarters. Implications for futur e research are discussed with respect to the Andersen and Williams (19 88) theoretical model.