Psychological Factors of Rehabilitation of Athletes After Knee Injury

Objective. The majority of the literature regarding sports injuries is concentrated on specific characteristics related to sports injuries and injuries at sport activities at all. We strove to establish whether the success of the rehabilitation process can be predicted based on numerous psychosocial variables. Methods. Our sample comprised of 68 competing athletes who underwent an operative knee surgery. The rehabilitation process for athletes lasted one or 6 months; all athletes obtained serious injuries by the standards of National Athletic Injury Reporting System (1). The following variables were measured: coping with pain (SIP 15), rehabilitation behaviours (SIRBS), motivation for rehabilitation, anxiety (STAI X1) and social support. A questionnaire that measures the functioning of the knee (2000 IKDC) was taken as an indicator of the rehabilitation success. Participants were tested both prior to and following the process of rehabilitation. Results. Our results showed that the success of psychological rehabilitation could be predicted from changes in certain psychosocial variables (a decrease in anxiety and an increase in susceptibility, self-efficacy and catastrophizing). After the rehabilitation, only 10 % of athletes were able to reach the criteria of a successful physical and psychological rehabilitation. Conclusions. We can conclude that since selected psychological variables were found to have a high loading on psychological rehabilitation there it makes sense to control these variables.