2010 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

The influence of optimism on coping skills and psychological skills training among injured athletes

Research Project

Project/Area Number	20700511
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Sports science
Research Institution	Kinki University
Principal Investigator	NAOI Airi Kinki University, 総合社会学部, 准教授 (60411584)
Project Period (FY)	2008 – 2010
Keywords	スポーツ傷害 / 楽観主義 / 心理スキルトレーニング / リハビリテーション
Research Abstract	The purpose of this study was to determine if optimism was related to preoperative and postoperative mood, pain, coping and recovery speed among Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injured athletes. Another purpose of this study was to examine how optimism influences the effectiveness of psychological skills training among injured athletes. In the first study, participants were 68 ACL injured patients who were considered to be physically active by sport medicine orthopedists. The results showed that optimism was positively related to positive interpretation and negatively related to tension (after operation). In the second study, four injured athletes participated in this study and received psychological skills training. The participants in the high optimism rated the effectiveness of the cognitive intervention on physical and psychological recovery to be higher than the participants in the low optimism.