Moderator Effects of Cognitive and Somatic Trait Anxiety on the Relation Between Life Stress and Physical Injuries

Abstract

Among the processes thought to mediate relations between life stress and injuries in physical performance settings are physiological arousal and cognitive interference. Such processes are known to occur with greater frequency and intensity in people who are high in dispositional performance anxiety, suggesting that trait anxiety may constitute a vulnerability factor. In an 8-month prospective study of ballet injuries, an adaptation of the multidimensional Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS) was used to measure somatic and cognitive ballet performance anxiety. Relations between recent stressful events, trait anxiety, and subsequent injuries were studied in a professional ballet company. In moderated multiple regression analyses, the Somatic Anxiety, Worry, and Concentration Disruption scales of the SAS all exhibited significant moderator effects, enhancing a positive relation between minor stressors and subsequent injury time loss. Results are consistent with current cognitive-affective models of stress and with the hypothesis that cognitive and somatic trait anxiety both constitute injury vulnerability factors.