Life stress and athletic injury: examination of positive versus negative events and three moderator variables.

A modified version of the Life Experiences Survey (LES) was used to examine the relationship between positive and negative life change and subsequent athletic injury among 104 collegiate varsity football players drawn from two teams. The findings from Team One indicated that players who incurred a significant time-loss injury had experienced greater negative--but not positive--life changes in the previous twelve months than noninjured players. Further, injured players tended to have higher object loss scores than noninjured players. No between-group differences were found for Team Two. Trait anxiety, competitive trait anxiety, and locus of control were examined as possible moderator variables in the life change--injury relationship, and were found to have no significant effects. While partially supporting past research, the findings indicate that more work on the stress--injury relationship is needed before life change measures can contribute to the assessment of athletes' injury potential.

[1]  C. Ross,et al.  A comparison of life-event-weighting schemes: change, undesirability, and effect-proportional indices. , 1979, Journal of health and social behavior.

[2]  S. Sarason,et al.  Anxiety in elementary school children : a report of research , 1960 .

[3]  R. M. Yarvis,et al.  Stressful life events and psychiatric symptomatology: change or undesirability? , 1977, Journal of health and social behavior.

[4]  A. Vinokur,et al.  Desirable versus undesirable life events: their relationship to stress and mental distress. , 1975, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[5]  S. Sarason,et al.  Anxiety in elementary school children , 1960 .

[6]  C. Spielberger,et al.  STAI manual for the State-trait anxiety inventory ("self-evaluation questionnaire") , 1970 .

[7]  Charles D. Spielberger,et al.  Anxiety and behavior , 1966 .

[8]  Some problems in the measurement of stress and social readjustment. , 1975, Journal of human stress.

[9]  G. Mandler,et al.  A study of anxiety and learning. , 1952, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[10]  I. Sarason.  Life Stress, Self-Preoccupation, and Social Supports. , 1979 .

[11]  Rainer Martens,et al.  Sport Competition Anxiety Test , 1979 .

[12]  T. H. Holmes,et al.  The Social Readjustment Rating Scale. , 1967, Journal of psychosomatic research.

[13]  I. Sarason,et al.  Test anxiety and the passage of time. , 1978, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[14]  R. Rahe,et al.  Life change and illness studies: past history and future directions. , 1978, Journal of human stress.

[15]  D. Streiner,et al.  A longitudinal study of the influence of the psychosocial environment on health status: a preliminary report. , 1980, Journal of health and social behavior.

[16]  T. H. Holmes,et al.  Psychosocial factors in athletic injuries: development and application of the social and athletic readjustment rating scale (SARRS). , 1975, Journal of human stress.

[17]  N. L. Corah,et al.  Perceived Control, Self- Observation, and Response to Aversive Stimulation. , 1970 .

[18]  R. Gatchel,et al.  Learned helplessness, depression, and physiological responding. , 1977, Psychophysiology.

[19]  G. Landreth,et al.  Predicting seriousness of illness using external stress, imagery, and other cognitive mediating variables. , 1981, Journal of human stress.

[20]  B. Dohrenwend,et al.  Stressful life events: Their nature and effects. , 1976 .

[21]  R. D. Coddington,et al.  The effect of emotional factors on football injury rates--a pilot study. , 1980, Journal of human stress.

[22]  J. L. Myers.  Fundamentals of Experimental Design , 1972 .

[23]  S. Zyzanski,et al.  Blood platelet aggregation and personality traits. , 1975, Journal of human stress.

[24]  J. Rotter.  Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. , 1966, Psychological monographs.

[25]  J. Suls,et al.  Life events, perceived control and illness: the role of uncertainty. , 1981, Journal of human stress.

[26]  George W. Brown.  Meaning, measurement, and stress of life events. , 1974 .

[27]  E. Cooley,et al.  Moderator variables in life stress and illness relationship. , 1981, Journal of human stress.

[28]  James H. Johnson,et al.  Assessing the impact of life changes: development of the Life Experiences Survey. , 1978, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[29]  James H. Johnson,et al.  Recent Developments in Research on Life Stress. , 1978 .