How elite athletes, coaches, and physiotherapists perceive a sports injury

This study aimed to explore how athletes, coaches, and physiotherapists define a sports injury, and how the elite sport context influences their perception of injury. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with athletes (n = 10), coaches (n = 5), and physiotherapists (n = 4) from different elite sports. The interviews were designed to explore core constructs of a sports injury, and the contextual factors that are related to these core constructs. Interviews were transcribed ad verbatim and analyzed independently by two analysts using comparative data analysis based on Grounded Theory. Participants most commonly defined an injury based on the athlete's performance limitation. Pain and ability to participate were also constructs applied in the definition of an injury, but mainly to appraise severity. A variety of personal and external factors such as personal motivation, pain coping strategies and importance of competition, were mentioned that influenced the injury perception and consequently the injury definition. A sports injury was presented as the end-result of an interaction between athlete features within the athletes' context. Our findings acknowledge that a sports injury is a context-dependent concept, and provide an insight into the contextual factors that influence athletes' and stakeholders' perception of injury.