Examining the relationship between hardiness and perceived stress- related growth in a sport injury context

TY - JOUR

T1 - Examining the relationship between hardiness and perceived stress- related growth in a sport injury context

AU - Salim, Jade

AU - Wadey, Ross

AU - Diss, Ceri

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - This study examined the relationship between hardiness, coping and perceived stress-related growth (SRG) in a sport injury context. Due to the exploratory nature of the study, a cross-sectional design was employed, whereby 206 previously injured athletes (148 male, 58 female, Mage 1⁄4 22.23 years) who had recently returned to sport completed three questionnaires: Dispositional Resilience Scale, Stress-Related Growth Scale, and Brief COPE. Pearson productemoment correlations and Preacher's and Hayes's (2008) bootstrapping procedure were used to analyze the data. Findings revealed a significant positive rela- tionship between hardiness and perceived SRG. Two coping strategies were found to mediate this relationship: emotional support and positive reframing. This would suggest that those higher in hardi- ness may have fostered SRG by mobilising their social support for emotional reasons (e.g., moral support, sympathy or understanding) and having the ability to construe their injury in positive terms; however, more rigorous methodologies are needed to confirm or refute these observations. These findings support some of the central tenets of Joseph and Linley's (2005) organismic valuing theory and provide impli- cations for professional practice. Future researchers should embrace qualitative inquiry to enhance the interpretability and meaningfulness of these findings (e.g., interpretative phenomenological analysis, narrative analysis), and use prospective, longitudinal pre-to-post sport injury designs to further sub- stantiate them.

AB - This study examined the relationship between hardiness, coping and perceived stress-related growth (SRG) in a sport injury context. Due to the exploratory nature of the study, a cross-sectional design was employed, whereby 206 previously injured athletes (148 male, 58 female, Mage 1⁄4 22.23 years) who had recently returned to sport completed three questionnaires: Dispositional Resilience Scale, Stress-Related Growth Scale, and Brief COPE. Pearson productemoment correlations and Preacher's and Hayes's (2008) bootstrapping procedure were used to analyze the data. Findings revealed a significant positive rela- tionship between hardiness and perceived SRG. Two coping strategies were found to mediate this relationship: emotional support and positive reframing. This would suggest that those higher in hardi- ness may have fostered SRG by mobilising their social support for emotional reasons (e.g., moral support, sympathy or understanding) and having the ability to construe their injury in positive terms; however, more rigorous methodologies are needed to confirm or refute these observations. These findings support some of the central tenets of Joseph and Linley's (2005) organismic valuing theory and provide impli- cations for professional practice. Future researchers should embrace qualitative inquiry to enhance the interpretability and meaningfulness of these findings (e.g., interpretative phenomenological analysis, narrative analysis), and use prospective, longitudinal pre-to-post sport injury designs to further sub- stantiate them.

M3 - Article

SN - 1469-0292

VL - 19

SP - 10

EP - 17

JO - PSYCHOLOGY OF SPORT AND EXERCISE

JF - PSYCHOLOGY OF SPORT AND EXERCISE

ER -