Exploring the Psychological Aspects of Sport Injury

Introduction

This course will develop your confidence and skills for online study, whether this is to explore sport and exercise topics or part of your preparation for another study. You’ll begin in the first two sessions with a general overview of the psychological aspects of sports injury, drawing on your own experiences and those from case study examples, before moving onto a more detailed analysis of the two keys areas of the topic:

• Pre-injury factors: psychological factors that may increase the risk of sports injury
• Post-injury factors: psychological responses to sports injury and their potential impact

As part of this, you will explore psychological techniques that can be used to help minimize the risk of developing a sports injury and help an individual to cope with sports injury once it has occurred. Case studies and audio-visual examples are used to help explain concepts and you’ll get plenty of opportunities to demonstrate your new understanding and practice your study skills. Part of this practice will be the interactive quizzes, of which Sessions 4 and 8 will provide you with an opportunity to earn a badge to demonstrate your new skills. You can read more about how to study the course and about badges in the next sections. Have you ever experienced a sports injury? Have you ever thought there could be a psychological dimension to sports injuries, as well as a physical one? In this course, Exploring the psychological aspects of sports injury, you will examine the relationship between injury and psychological factors. You will look at the link between injury and psychology at two distinct points – before an injury has occurred and then following an injury. First, you will consider the psychological factors that may increase the likelihood of sustaining a sports injury (pre-injury), and then you will consider psychological reactions to the incidence of a sports injury (post-injury). The course will also allow you to examine how sport and exercise psychology can be used both to help minimize the risk of injury and to help people cope better with sports injury rehabilitation. The course draws on a wealth of case study and audio-visual material to bring the psychology of sports injury to life. By advancing your understanding of the psychological aspects of sports injury, you will develop a more holistic understanding of sports injury that will aid your interactions with injured sport and exercise participants and any injury experiences you might have in the future.