sport perfectionism and risk factors of sport injury rehabilitation overadherence
abstract
rehabilitation overadherence is a form of nonadherence in which individuals exceed
practitioners’ guidelines regarding the rehabilitation of their injury, resulting in enhanced risk for
re-injury and prolonged recovery (granquist, podlog, engel, & newland, 2014). overadherence
is common among overly-motivated injured athletes with intense personalities (niven, 2007).
this suggests that perfectionism may be a factor that puts injured athletes at a greater risk of
rehabilitation overadherence. this study utilized the 2 × 2 model of perfectionism (gaudreau &
thomspon, 2010) to investigate this claim. injured athletes (n = 82; mage = 27.45 years, sd =
10.88) currently undergoing supervised rehabilitation completed measures of two perfectionism
dimensions (personal standards and evaluative concerns) and four overadherence risk factors
(effortful healing, expedited rehabilitation, inclinations to overadhere, and normalization of
pain). a series of multiple regression analyses tested whether the perfectionism dimensions
interacted to predict each overadherence risk factor. no significant effects were found for
effortful healing and expedited rehabilitation. a significant main effect (b = 0.17) indicated
that higher levels of evaluative concerns predicted greater inclinations to overadhere. a
significant interaction effect (b = -0.07) identified a similar relationship between evaluative
concerns and normalization of pain, but specified that this relationship was greatest when
personal standards were low. findings are interpreted in line with the 2 × 2 model’s hypotheses
and identified initial evidence of the associations between perfectionism and sport injury
rehabilitation overadherence. the discussion speculates as to why relationships were evident for
some overadherence risk factors, but not others, elaborates on the role of evaluative concerns
perfectionism in overadherence, and suggests practical implications for practitioners.