Dr Caroline Heaney, The Open University

Sport psychology and sports injury are undeniably linked – psychological factors have been shown to impact on both injury prevention and injury rehabilitation. Factors such as high stress levels can increase the risk of injury, whilst the occurrence of a sports injury can lead to several negative psychological reactions such as anger, frustration, fear, anxiety and depression which can impact on rehabilitation behaviour (e.g. adherence to a rehabilitation programme) and outcomes (e.g. recovery time) (Brewer & Redmond, 2017). Consequently, the use of sport psychology intervention during injury rehabilitation is advocated and has been shown to lead to several positive outcomes such as improved attitude, adherence and self-efficacy (Brewer, 2010).

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