“I can’t return to play” – When fear of reinjury dominates after ACL reconstruction: Adam Gledhill - a podcast by BMJ Group

Adam Gledhill (http://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/staff/adam-gledhill/) is a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Therapy at Leeds Beckett University. He has a terrific amount of experience in sport psychology in football at the elite level, particularly among top female football players.

Adam (@Gleds13) shares the case of Joanna (pseudonym) who has returned from ACL injury but is losing confidence ahead of a major game. We learn which specific tools can be used to address psychological readiness and how this worked out in real life.

We wish Adam the best as he completes his PhD focusing on psychosocial factors associated with talent development in female soccer.

Additional resources:

Read the systematic review: Psychosocial factors associated with outcomes of sports injury rehabilitation in competitive athletes: a mixed studies systematic review. Dale Forsdyke, Andy Smith, Michelle Jones, Adam Gledhill
http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2016/02/17/bjsports-2015-094850.abstract

Links for sports psychology tools mentioned in the podcast:

Evans et al (2008) The development of a measure of psychological responses to injury (paper looking at the development of the psychological responses to sports injury inventory) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18270384

Glazer (2009) Development and Preliminary Validation of the Injury-Psychological Readiness to Return to Sport (I-PRRS) Scale http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2657021/

Smith et al (1990) The psychological effects of sports injuries: Coping (paper for the Emotional Responses of Athletes to Injury Questionnaire)http://link.springer.com/article/10.2165/00007256-199009060-00004

Walker et al. (2010) A preliminary development of the Re-Injury Anxiety Inventory (RIAI). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20129120

Another paper that Adam didn't use with this particular client but that he also recommends is:
Taylor and May (1996) Threat and coping appraisal as determinants of compliance with sports injury rehabilitation: an application of Protection Motivation Theory (paper for the development of the sports injury rehabilitation beliefs survey) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8981286

Further listening:

Also check this podcast by Dr Clare Ardern which discusses criteria-based return to play decisions in the case of "Sarah". This complements much of the work conducted with "Joanna" in this podcast. Great food for thought for practical return to play decision-making - https://soundcloud.com/bmjpodcasts/return-to-play

Further episodes of BJSM

Further podcasts by BMJ Group

Website of BMJ Group