The Relationship between Prevalence of Injuries and Mental Preparation of Male and Female Athletes Participating in 10th National University Sport Olympiad

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of mental preparation of
athletes participating in 10th University Sport Olympiad on the prevalence of sport
injuries. For this purpose, 375 athletes in two groups of girls (n=178) and boys
(n=197) participated in this study. Participants were selected from seven sport
fields which were divided into team sports and individual sports. Data were
collected by sport injuries report form and Ottawa Mental Skills Assessment Tool
(OMSAT-3). Descriptive statistics (such as mean and standard deviation) and
Pearson correlation coefficient were used to analyze the data at %95 significance
level. The results showed that most injuries occurred in lower extremities of the
girls while most injuries occurred in upper extremities of the boys. Moreover, girls
and boys were not significantly different in the three subscales of mental skills. The
results showed a reverse and significant relationship between cognitive skills and
occurrence of injuries in female athletes’ lower extremities (r=0.015). Also, there
was a reverse and significant relationship between cognitive skills and occurrence
of injuries in bones and joints (r=0.003 and r=0.046). There was no significant
relationship between mental skills and occurrence of injuries in male athletes. In
summary, findings of this study demonstrated that high levels of cognitive skills
(such as competition planning) help athletes to more easily deal with different
sport occasions. This can play an important role in decreasing the occurrence of
sport injuries. Therefore, coaches and specialists in youth sport are recommended
to improve cognitive skills in young athletes so that sport injuries can decrease.
Overall, findings of this study supported different aspects of injury- stress model.