Does perceived risk of sport injury change along the rehabilitation process?

Abstract

Perceived risk refers to the extent to which an individual believes that he/she is subject to a health threat, and it motivates active health-protective behaviors. Sport injury is often the result of athlete risk behavior (or absence of health­ protective behaviors). Moreover, risk perception is related to injury risk (Kontos, 2004). Thus, perceived vulnerability to sport injury might contribute to an increase in health-protective behaviors in order to reduce sport injury. This work tests whether perceived risk varies during the rehabilitation process. With this in mind, 47 non-professional soccer players reported their perceived vulnerability to sport injury-using Deroche et al.'s (2007) three-item Perceived Risk of Sport lnjury scale­ at the time of presenting to the Football Association's Health Services immediately after an injury had occurred. At this time, they also reported what they had perceived their vulnerability to sport injury to be before suffering the injury. Athletes were asked again after completing the rehabilitation process (1 to 27 weeks). Results showed risk perception changed from the moment of injury to the moment they were discharged (F =4.296; p = .045;_2 = .107) andthiswas irrespective of time-loss (F = 0.004; p = .953).