Exploring athletes’ experience of their injuries: A qualitative investigation

Injury is an unfortunate outcome of participation in competitive sport. While sports injuries have attracted considerable research interest in recent years, few authors have investigated athletes’ beliefs about, or experiences of, these potentially traumatic events. As a result of such neglect, at least three important questions remain unresolved in this field. First, what do athletes perceive as the main consequences of their injuries? Second, what practical coping techniques do they use in an attempt to deal with such injuries? Finally, what factors shape athletes’ overall experience of their injuries? This study set out to answer these three questions using a qualitative research design. Twenty-two injured athletes aged 16 to 29 years (M=21.86 years, SD=3.56) took part in one of six focus groups. Overall, the results suggest that athletic injury is experienced in a multifaceted way, with negative and positive perceptions sometimes alternating during the recovery process. Following a discussion of the key results, specific suggestions are provided for further research in this field. For example, the athletes who participated in this study sustained injuries from which they could recover. It is suggested that an investigation in the future should include athletes whose sporting careers have been terminated by injury, in order to establish how such outcomes impact on the athletes’ experiences of injury.