As the interest in sports grows among younger generations, more people aspire to become professional athletes, causing them to start playing at a young age. While there is joy that comes with playing sports, there is just as much pain that comes with it. Sports injuries are a major aspect of athletes’ careers, as they often cause physical setbacks and profound psychological responses. This study serves an important purpose in the literature, as understanding these psychological responses and how they interrelate is essential for developing effective interventions to help injured athletes. However, when an athlete is injured the psychological responses to sports injuries were largely overlooked, with the focus primarily on physical rehabilitation because it is their job to continue playing. Through past actions to increase awareness of mental health, however, athletes and coaches have started to focus on the mental aspect of injury recovery as well. The most common responses to an injury, range from denial and anger to fear and acceptance, highlighting the complex and multifaceted nature of the psychological experience after an injury.
Psychological responses refer to the emotional, cognitive, and behavioural reactions an individual has due to an external or internal stimuli; however, this review will focus mainly on the emotional reactions athletes have. One of the earliest and most famous frameworks in understanding these responses was the Kübler-Ross model of grief, which suggested that injured athletes often experience different stages of grief in a consistent pattern: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and then acceptance. Although this model was initially developed for terminal illness, athletes also experience a similar set of emotions after an injury.
Although athletes are often noticed only for their performances in each game, they go through a complex relationship with psychological responses as well. For instance, denial and anger can impede their progress toward acceptance, while fear can coexist with both grief and optimism, complicating the recovery process. Understanding how these responses interact is crucial for providing holistic support to injured athletes and making sure they return back mentally and physically stronger.
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