PIO Systematic Review Paper: Psychological Assessors and Coping Strategies for Injured Athletes during Recovery

Due to the large number of athletes participating in sports who sustain injuries there are common negative psychological responses presented such as the loss of athletic identity, low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and fear1,4,13,15,18. According to the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), nearly one in three adolescents in the United States (31.9 %) will have an anxiety disorder18 and around 10% will have depression18,19. The objective of this paper is to determine if there are psychological assessors and coping strategies to best determine psychological preparedness and evaluate these negative psychological effects of athletic injury for return to sport in athletes. The systematic review included 21 articles about the negative psychological responses associated with athletic injury and ways to identify and cope with them. The articles were reviewed from a retrospective database search, narrowed down by reading the titles, then abstracts, and lastly the articles. Search criteria included English language publications between 1996 and 2016, with a subject population of adolescents and young adults presenting with an injury from athletics. After review of the literature, the CES-D, BDI, and POMS were validated and utilized the most along with HRQOL and stated to have high reliability and sensitivity3,8,10,14,18,19. In regards to coping, when athletes were satisfied with social support, they reported fewer symptoms of depression (p \u3c 0.0001) or anxiety (p \u3c 0.0001) at return to play compared with athletes who were dissatisfied with the social support20,21. Thus, it is recommended to use a mixed methods approach with multiple assessors, such as the ERAIQ and the POMS scale to accurately obtain patient-rated measures from an injured athlete4,14, as well as various coping strategies specific for the individual athlete, with social support emphasis throughout recovery1,11,13,17,20,21