Kinesiophobia After Returning to Play in Football

OBJECTIVES: Various researches have been made about the return to sport criterias and functional tests – but it is not certain that even if the athletes do the recommended plan, they could return to the previous level of competition. A successful sportrehabilitation means that the athlete is able to continue the competition sport on the preinjury level, therefore only evaluating the required fulfillment of the recommeded joint range of motion, muscle strength or the obligatory levels of functional tests does not provide enought information on the successfulness of the rehabilitation.

METHODS: The study evaluated injured professional soccer players (n=103) between 03 January 2021 and 17 December 2021, in all Hungarian first and second league teams, with the help of questionnaires. Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia (TSK) and Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2) were used, to search for correlation between results of the questionnaires, differences between contact and non-contact injuries, and injuries during matches or trainings.

RESULTS: The prevalence of kinesiophobia was 17% (n=17) in the group of examination (n=103). TSK showed significant relationship with self-confidence after returning to sport (p<0.001). Contact injuries cause significantly higher level of anxiety than non-contact injuries (p<0.001). There was no correlation between the level of kinesiophobia and level of cognitive anxiety (p=0.518) and somatic anxiety (p=0.417). There were no differences between contact and non-contact injuries in the relation to kinesiophobia (p=0.342) and the prevalence of somatic anxiety (p=0.125).

CONCLUSIONS: Even though it does not receive enough attention, kinesophobia is still quite relevant among athletes nowadays. This study demonstrated that kinesiophobia correlates with self-confidence after returning to competition. The difference is significant in terms of anxiety between contact and non-contact injuries.