COPING STRATEGIES AMONG LONG-TERM INJURED COMPETITIVE ATHLETES - A STUDY OF 81 MEN AND WOMEN IN TEAM AND INDIVIDUAL SPORTS

Differences in personality, mood and coping ability between athletes o f a high competitive level with long-term injuries (n=81), with a mean age of 24.4 years, and a matched non-injured group (n=64), with a mea n age of 24.2 years, were investigated. Three self-rating scales were employed: mood adjective check-list, general coping questionnaire and Karolinska scales of personality. Although no differences in basic per sonality traits were found, being injured was found to result in a dep ressed mood state and in the activation of coping strategies directed at receiving help. Comparisons were made between injured male and fema le athletes as well as between team-sport and individual-sport athlete s. Women were found to become more anxious and tense and to have a str onger inclination to use emotion-focused coping strategies. Team-sport athletes were found to cope more in terms of 'passive acceptance' of help from others, whereas individual athletes were found to activate ' problem-solving' strategies in face of a stressor. The results suggest that social aspects of rehabilitative work are important and support the concept that rehabilitative work with long-term injured athletes s hould be individualized to be maximally effective. They also support t he usefulness of cognitive models of the injured athlete's experience of being long-term injured. Such models, however, do not account for d ifferences between the sexes or between individual and team athletes.