Term of Award

Spring 2021

Degree Name

Master of Science, Kinesiology - Exercise Science Concentration

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (open access)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Health and Kinesiology

Committee Chair

Jessica Mutchler

Committee Member 1

Samuel Wilson

Committee Member 2

Megan Byrd

Abstract

PURPOSE: Injuries to the hamstring complex are one of the most commonly seen lower extremity injuries in athletic populations. It is currently unknown how psychological or sociological factors affect an athlete after the recovery process has ended and if these factors play a role in re-injury rates relating to the hamstring. It is also unknown if athlete confidence level changes while in a fatigued state after an athlete returns to play from a hamstring injury. METHODS: Twenty-six physically active adults with and without a previous hamstring injury were recruited for this study. Participants completed a Qualtrics survey that included demographic questions for participant matching purposes, the Oslo Sport Trauma’s Hamstring Outcome Score (HaOS), the Injury Psychological Readiness to Return to Sport (I-PRRS), and the Athletic Fear Avoidance Questionnaire (AFAQ). DATA ANALYSIS: Descriptive statistics were run to report means and standard deviations of questionnaire scores for the Hamstring (HS) and Control (Con) groups. Multiple one-way ANOVAs were used to compare the HaOS subscales and total score, I-PRRS scores, and AFAQ scores between previously-injured hamstring individuals and their healthy, matched control after splitting the SPSS data file between competitive (HS_Comp and Con_Comp) and non-competitive athletes (HS_Non-Comp and Con_Non-Comp). A paired-samples t-test was also run to determine differences between the I-PRRS scores within each group. RESULTS: There was a statistically significant difference in Pain, Function, and Total HaOS scores for the HS_Non-Comp compared to the Con_Non-Comp (P=0.05) but not between the HS_Comp and Con_Comp groups (P=0.09). No other statistically significant differences were observed (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: Non-competitive athletes with a previous hamstring injury reported a greater degree of disability due to pain and function when compared to non-competitive athletes with no history of hamstring injury, but this was not observed in the competitive hamstring group. The results also suggest that fear of re-injury may exist after returning to activity following a hamstring injury, but confidence in performance may not change after returning to play. Future research should focus on the fear avoidance that may remain after injury and why non-competitive athletes had long-term reports of disability whereas competitive athletes did not.

OCLC Number

1251801916

Research Data and Supplementary Material

No

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