Abstract
Competitive athletes act within cultures of risk in sports and often decide to return to sport despite having acute health problems. The outcomes of such risky return-to-play decisions can not only negatively affect their future health, but may also limit their sports performance or even upset their career paths. Following risk-management-decision theory with its focus on active risk defusing, we developed a model for understanding the process of return-to-play decision making from an athlete’s perspective. Based on the method of active information search, a quasi-naturalistic return-to-play decision scenario was created in order to assess amateur team sport athletes’ decision-making strategies. The main goals were to identify different information acquisition patterns and to analyze the influence of varying sporting consequences on decision making. A total of 72 competitive team sport athletes (36 females, 36 males, m = 25.7 years of age, 3rd to 6th league level) from three disciplines (volleyball, basketball, and handball) participated in the experimental study. Facing the same medical scenario (a partial tear of the supraspinatus tendon), athletes show different approaches to return-to-play decision making. The main focus is on the potential sporting consequences of withdrawal from competition due to injury, with only a few players favoring well-informed decisions based on thorough risk analysis. The athletes who chose the medically risky alternative to play hurt mostly employed strategies of active risk defusing, which got activated when severe sporting consequences were perceived. Those who chose to withdraw from competition primarily referred to maximin heuristic, particularly when social pressure to play was reduced. The findings can be used to improve rehabilitation-related communication and shared return-to-play decision making in sports.
Highlights
Decisions about whether to return to play or rest when having an acute health problem are typical of all kinds of sports
In accordance with the presented theoretical framework we developed a quasinaturalistic return-to-play decision-making scenario for amateur team sport athletes which allows to empirically address the following central research questions: 1. What kind of information search and acquisition patterns do athletes follow in a typical return-to-play decision scenario?
Information Acquisition Patterns Analyzing the information categories the athletes searched for, we could identify three distinct acquisition patterns: 1. No information category searched at all: the participants were well aware of the possibility of gathering information about the decision-making situation, 25 of them did not actively search for information
Summary
Decisions about whether to return to play or rest when having an acute health problem are typical of all kinds of sports. Such choices usually have to be made under time pressure induced by competitive schedules and refer to uncertainties about both sporting and medical consequences. They are further characterized by the need to justify them to significant others like coaches, Return-to-Play Decision Making managers, team members, or even the public. Competing hurt can have the positive outcome of being part of a possibly winning team Choosing this alternative could result in the negative outcome of aggravating the injury. We will focus on the question of how athletes proceed when confronted with risky return-toplay decisions
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
