Mayer Jochen, Burgess Stephanie, Thiel Ansgar
Institute of Sports Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
Institute of Occupational and Social Medicine, University Hospital Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2020 Jun 3;11:1020. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01020. eCollection 2020.
Competitive athletes act within cultures of risk in sports and often decide to return to sport despite having acute health problems. The outcomes of such risky return-to-play decisions can not only negatively affect their future health, but may also limit their sports performance or even upset their career paths. Following risk-management-decision theory with its focus on active risk defusing, we developed a model for understanding the process of return-to-play decision making from an athlete's perspective. Based on the method of active information search, a quasi-naturalistic return-to-play decision scenario was created in order to assess amateur team sport athletes' decision-making strategies. The main goals were to identify different information acquisition patterns and to analyze the influence of varying sporting consequences on decision making. A total of 72 competitive team sport athletes (36 females, 36 males, = 25.7 years of age, 3rd to 6th league level) from three disciplines (volleyball, basketball, and handball) participated in the experimental study. Facing the same medical scenario (a partial tear of the supraspinatus tendon), athletes show different approaches to return-to-play decision making. The main focus is on the potential sporting consequences of withdrawal from competition due to injury, with only a few players favoring well-informed decisions based on thorough risk analysis. The athletes who chose the medically risky alternative to play hurt mostly employed strategies of active risk defusing, which got activated when severe sporting consequences were perceived. Those who chose to withdraw from competition primarily referred to maximin heuristic, particularly when social pressure to play was reduced. The findings can be used to improve rehabilitation-related communication and shared return-to-play decision making in sports.
竞技运动员在体育运动的风险文化中行事，尽管存在急性健康问题，他们往往仍决定重返赛场。这种冒险的重返比赛决定的结果不仅会对他们未来的健康产生负面影响，还可能限制他们的运动表现，甚至打乱他们的职业道路。遵循以积极化解风险为重点的风险管理决策理论，我们从运动员的角度开发了一个理解重返比赛决策过程的模型。基于主动信息搜索方法，创建了一个准自然主义的重返比赛决策场景，以评估业余团队运动运动员的决策策略。主要目标是识别不同的信息获取模式，并分析不同运动后果对决策的影响。来自三个项目（排球、篮球和手球）的72名竞技团队运动运动员（36名女性，36名男性，平均年龄25.7岁，联赛水平为第三至第六级别）参与了这项实验研究。面对相同的医疗场景（冈上肌腱部分撕裂），运动员在重返比赛决策上表现出不同的方法。主要关注点是因伤退出比赛的潜在运动后果，只有少数运动员倾向于基于全面风险分析做出明智的决策。选择冒险带伤参赛的运动员大多采用主动化解风险的策略，这种策略在察觉到严重运动后果时被激活。那些选择退出比赛的运动员主要参考极大极小启发法，尤其是在比赛的社会压力降低时。这些发现可用于改善体育康复相关的沟通以及共同的重返比赛决策。
