The relation between psychological factors and the incidence of injuries in team handball players.

As well as promoting health, sports can have negative consequences in the form of injuries. Psychological factors play a significant role in the occurrence of, reaction to, and prevention of sport injuries. The incidence of injuries is highest in handball of all team sports. The purpose of the study was to examine if psychological factors are a risk factor for the occurrence of injuries in handball and whether stress and recovery, gender, and level of expertise are predictors of getting injured or not. Furthermore, the purpose is to analyze the differences in psychological aspects in expert (playing in a national league) and non-expert (playing in a regional league) players. In this study 158 Dutch handball players participated. The participants had to fill in the Recovery Stress Questionnaire for Athletes (RESTQ-sport) and the Profile of Mood States (POMS) at the beginning and the end of a three month period. Participants had to report whether they got injured in this period. The results show that injured athletes have higher levels of stress and lower levels of recovery than not injured athletes. Injured athletes show more negative (depression, anger, fatigue, and tension) and less positive (vigor) emotions than not injured athletes. Experts have higher levels of stress than non-experts and non-experts have higher levels of recovery than experts. Furthermore, experts show more negative (depression, anger, fatigue and tension) and less positive (vigor) emotions than non-experts. The general conclusion is that stress and emotions seem to have an influence on the occurrence of injury. Furthermore, expert handball players experience higher level of stress and negative emotions.