Physiotherapists’ attitudes and perceptions of sports psychological interventions during injury rehabilitation

Abstract

Throughout an athlete’s sporting career one is prone to getting injured, often hindering performance and disrupting the individual’s daily routine and lifestyle. Physiotherapists tend to only consider the injury’s physical aspect, often overlooking the psychological responses. This acts as a barrier from providing the athlete with a holistic approach (Pierce 2021). Consequently, a gap within the rehabilitation process presents, acting as a limitation for the athletes to return to play (RTP) confidently with optimal functional restoration. This study aims to investigate the current knowledge, perceptions and attitudes physiotherapists possess regarding the practice of psychological interventions during rehabilitation. A qualitative approach was followed by taking an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) method, being the ideal tool to gain a more in-depth understanding of physiotherapists’ current knowledge and lived experiences. A Purposeful Sampling Method (PSM) was used, and six interviews were conducted with Maltese physiotherapists and Thematic Analysis (TA) was utilised to analyse the data. Consequently, five main themes were evaluated: ‘Physiotherapists’ perception of injury’; ‘Factors influencing an injury’; ‘Reasons for lack of psychological interventions’; ‘Level of professionalism’; and ‘Psychological interventions put into practice’. All the participants were knowledgeable as to what defines an injury, the resulting psychological effects on the athlete, and how these consequently affect the rehabilitation process and the athlete’s performance upon RTP. However, the use of psychological interventions was still greatly expressed as lacking within this field. The participants noted that possible reasons include the lack of resources and knowledge provided to them about the subject at an educational level, even at Master’s level; prioritization and time constraints; and the topic being underestimated. Nevertheless, the occasionally used psychological interventions were also considered, together with the multidisciplinary aspect of liaising with a sports psychologist, and the experienced differences seen before and after psychological interventions.