Beyond the Physical Wounds: Male Varsity Athletes' Psychological Responses to Hypothetical Sport Concussions

• Author / Creator

  Pearson, Thomas B

• Following Wiese-Bjnorstal et al.’s (1995) sport injury response model, this dissertation used hypothetical scenarios to examine the relationships between sport concussion severity, post-concussion injury appraisals, and post-concussion depression and anxiety symptoms. Participants included a convenience sample of 99-male varsity athletes that played football, hockey, soccer, and basketball. The hypothetical scenarios depicted three sport concussion incidents that varied in terms of severity (return-to-play in two weeks, out for the season, and career ending). Male varsity athletes’ completed a measure of current depression and anxiety symptoms and were asked to anticipate their post-injury appraisals and depression and anxiety symptoms in relation to one of the three randomly presented sport concussion scenarios. Across the three sport concussion scenario groups, there was a trend of male varsity athletes’ anticipated post-concussion depression and anxiety symptoms being significantly higher than their current symptom levels. Moreover, there was a trend of male varsity athletes’ anticipated depression and anxiety symptoms being significantly higher for the scenarios that depicted increased sport concussion severity. Sport concussion severity significantly effected male varsity athletes’ anticipated injury appraisals and the effects were more prominent for the two week and career ending groups. Male varsity athletes’ anticipated post-injury appraisals displayed positive and significant correlations with their anticipated depression and anxiety symptoms, yet the greatest support was found for the two week and season ending groups. The findings were discussed in terms of potential theoretical and practical implications, methodological limitations, and future research directions.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Injury Severity
  • Anxiety Symptoms
  • Sport Concussion
  • Varsity Athletes
  • Injury Attributions
  • Depression Symptoms
  • Hypothetical Scenarios
  • Men

• Graduation date

  Fall 2016

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3TB0Z34M

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.