Sports psychology and its role in modern medicine: literature review

Sports psychology as an academic field has existed for almost two centuries. A constant goal since its inception has been to understand how psychological techniques can improve athletic performance. In this article, we sought to synthesize the existing literature in order to gain an understanding of the overall impact of sports psychology on athletic performance. This article examines how important psychology is for sports medicine and what sports psychologists do. It also provides an overview of how the principles and recommendations of sports psychologists are key assets in optimal support of athletes' health, performance and wellbeing. Materials and methods. A systematic search was conducted in 3 databases: Scopus, Google Scholar and PubMed. The search strategy was developed without specific time and language constraints. Results. Long-term observations show that the integration of sports psychology into medical practice contributes to the formation of stable skills of self-regulation and stress tolerance in athletes. The results confirm that an interdisciplinary approach creates the basis for the development of personalized medicine, where psychological techniques become an integral part of the treatment process of professional athletes. This opens up new opportunities for disease prevention and improving the quality of life of patients. This review strengthens the evidence base for sports psychology methods and may be of great practical value to practitioners.