Psychosocial factors influencing the recovery of athletes with anterior cruciate ligament injury: A systematic review

One of the adverse consequences of injuries is that an athlete cannot train full-time in his or her sport and might be the reason why talented athletes stop performing their sport. Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries happen about 250 000–300 000 times a year. To minimize these negative consequences, it is important to ensure a successful rehabilitation to the ACL injury.This review describes the psychosocial factors that affect recovery following anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury and reconstructive surgery in athletes. 

The results showed that athletes with a low level of fear of re-injury had the best knee outcome after the injury followed by a reconstruction. In addition, athletes who returned to sport had less fear of re-injury and were more experienced and established athletes compared with athletes who did not return to sport. Further- more, researchers showed that there was a positive relation between goal setting and adherence, which in turn yielded a positive relation with the outcome of the rehabilitation of an ACL injury. There were several psychosocial interventions that appeared to be facilitating the rehabilitation process. 

In conclusion: to ensure a good recovery of ACL injury and reconstructive surgery in athletes, it is important to understand the factors that are related to this rehabilitation process. > From: Te Wierike et al., Scand J Med Sci Sports 23 (2013) 527–540. All rights reserved to John Wiley & Sons A/S.

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