Social support during injury rehabilitation: A qualitative analysis of adherence

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to understand injured athletes social support experiences and the effect these had on their rehabilitation adherence. Furthermore to recognise the reasons why social support had and impact and explore the processes and pathways that accompanied the athlete’s adherence throughout the rehabilitation period. Athletes who took part in the study (n = 8) had all suffered an injury in the past six months which had stopped them participating in sport for at least six weeks. Semi –structured interviews were conducted with each participant and then an inductive analysis of the data utilised to extract results. The study found that both perceived and received support played a facilitative role in promoting an athletes adherence to their rehabilitation. It was also found that the social support participants received promoted motivation, which in turn was effective upon their rehabilitation adherence. The main conclusion from the study was both perceived and received support play a fundamental role in facilitating the control of injury related stressors and in turn can aid the promotion of an athlete’s adherence to a rehabilitation programme.