Effects of Social Support on Compliance in Rehabilitating Athletes

The purpose of the study was to better understand if social support has an effect at all on the athlete’s compliance in coming in to do their rehabilitation during an injury. Those who participated in this study were from the colleges and universities in the state of Ohio. The participants were collegiate athletes who were in a rehabilitation program for six or more weeks and had returned to play. Of the 56 surveys returned, 18 (32.14%) of those were fully completed, and nine (16.07%) of those, consisting of seven (77.78%) females and two (22.22%) males, met the criteria set. Athletes were “strongly satisfied” with the listening support that they received from their friends and athletic trainer (6 count each), seven athletes found it “very easy” to obtain more listening support from their athletic trainer, and 6 athletes answered “very much” for their athletic trainer for the questions on each persons contribution of listening support to their overall well-being. Athletes were then asked how they felt the social support they did receive impacted their desire to be compliant. A total of 89% answered yes with giving responses that had common themes such as: they felt encouraged, it was helpful, they were feeling stronger and better, and it motivated them. Those who answered no (11.11%) responded that the social support did not have an impact on their desire to attend rehabilitation due to the fact that they felt “self-motivated”. The definition of social support that was used was an exchange of resources between two individuals perceived by the provider or the recipient to be intended to enhance the well being of the recipient. The definition of compliance that was used was the behavior an athletes demonstrates by pursuing a course of action that coincides with the recommendations of the clinician. It was found that there is a relationship between these two factors, which promotes teaching athletes the importance of having proper social support during rehabilitation to increase compliance