Changes in psychosocial stress and recovery and injury occurrence: a one-year prospective study

Introduction Indoor team sport players have a high injury risk (Theisen et al., 2013). It is assumed that psychosocial stress and recovery have an impact on this risk (Jung, 2000). The aim of this study is to investigate if changes in psychosocial stress and recovery during the course of a season are related to injury occurrence. Methods During the 2011-2012 competitive season 66 male and female indoor team sport players (age:22.2±3.4yr, lenght:189.2±10.7cm, weight:82.9±13.0kg) participated in this study. To assess psychosocial stress and recovery the players completed the Dutch version of the RESTQ-Sport (Nederhof et al., 2008) every three weeks. Difference scores were calculated for each three-week period for the 19 subscales of the RESTQ-Sport. Injuries were registered during the course of the season by the medical staff of the team according to the FIFA registration system (Fuller et al., 2006). Comparisons were made between injured and non-injured players for the mean difference (Mdiff) scores on the 19 subscales of psychosocial stress and recovery. The mean difference was taken over the two 3 week periods before the injury for the injured players and the mean difference over all remaining periods was taken for the non-injured players. Results Fifty-three injuries (80%) were reported, resulting in an average of 15.6 days of medical attention and 16.7 days of time loss