Discover the hidden toll of injuries on mental health. Unravel the link between injury and mental ill health, while understanding how these setbacks can affect every aspect of life beyond the physical realm. Gain insights on overcoming challenges to restore well-being and reclaim your sense of self. Dr. Carl Bescoby explores the impact of injury on mental health and how injury can be a major risk factor for psychological distress and mental ill-health.

Injury increases the risk of mental ill-health

Sports injury is recognised as a major risk factor for psychological distress and sustaining an injury increases the risk of mental ill-health. Whilst the physical effects of injury are widely known, the psychological effects are less frequently discussed and supported despite their prevalence for athletes across all levels.

Understanding how your mental health affects injury and recovery outcomes and how mental health challenges increase the risk of injury may offer some important considerations, such as how to better support and look after your mental health needs.

For example, coping strategies may be introduced early on within an athletic program or high-performance schedule as a preventative measure for poor mental health functioning. Additionally, the training demands may be adjusted to support the wellbeing and mental health needs as you recover from injury.

So how does injury impact your mental health?

Psychological responses following an injury may include negative emotions, mood disturbances, fear of re-injury, failure-based depression, devastation, reduced confidence, and restlessness. Each of these psychological responses can impact your mental health as well as your recovery and return to activity outcomes. When you initially sustain an injury, you may be susceptible to negative emotions of sadness, denial, anger, frustration, and depression.

These emotional reactions, although completely normal, may become problematic if they are not resolved and may become more severe over time if you do not have the coping resources and are left unsupported and unacknowledged. It is important to understand that these emotional reactions accompany injuries and are part of the psychological processing during the initial onset of injury and throughout rehabilitation.

“Injury also can potentially unmask or precipitate mental health disorders”

Injuries can impact your quality of life beyond just physical limits

Injuries can have a profound impact on your quality of life beyond your physical functionality and you may be at increased risk of mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Research has found that if you have sustained one or more severe joint injuries during your career, you are three to four times more likely to report distress compared to those who had not suffered from severe joint injuries during their career.

It is the prolonged levels of distress that may lead to mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression which may be experienced early on during rehabilitation. Furthermore, depression post-injury is an important predictor of recovery, and identifying and managing depression is of paramount importance during rehabilitation.

Finally, an injury may be viewed as a traumatic event and may induce a trauma-related response and may pose risk to the progression of PTSD. Individuals facing PTSD may experience inconsistencies in rehabilitation performance, increased somatic complaints, and or avoidance symptoms and these may persist beyond physical recovery and returning to activity.