Effect of sports injury on self confidence of national male hockey players

Abstract

Sports rehabilitation primarily aims at providing a platform for injured players to return to sports safely. The rehabilitation mainly concerns about the treatment of physical injuries but the psychological aspects of sports injuries also need scrutiny because self confidence is very much important for sports performance. The present study aimed to assess self confidence among national male hockey players returning to sports after an injury. The researchers recruited 25 national male hockey players with the mean age being 25.37 years. The selection of these injured hockey players was based on nature and type of injury, duration of rehabilitation, and coaches perspective. In this way, 10 male hockey players with common injuries and 15 male hockey players with severe injuries were selected. The players who sustained common injuries were unable to take part in hockey for one week and those with severe injuries were unable to take part in hockey for more than one month. To assess self confidence in injured male hockey players, A Sports Injury Rehabilitation and Sports Self Confidence Scale prepared by Yadav and Bajpai (2015) was used. Results revealed that 44% of male hockey players returning to the sport after injury had a high level of self confidence, 44% had a moderate level of self confidence and 12% had a low level of self confidence. It was concluded that majority of the male hockey players returning to the sport after an injury did not have a high level of self confidence and needs some psychological intervention to manage this issue.