Professional specificity and pain perception of professional athletes with limb injuries

Authors:

Lyubov A. Malikova, I.P. Pavlov State Medical University Ryazan, Russia ORCID: 0000-0002-5435-7385, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Natalia V. Yakovleva, I.P. Pavlov State Medical University Ryazan, Russia ORCID: 0000-0002-7682-7245, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract:

Health is one of the most important values of an athlete that allows them professional fulfillment. Health problems in a sports injury situation affect all levels of an individual’s functioning, from perceptual to value-semantic. The aim of our study is to study the influence of the profession on the personality of an athlete, by analyzing the comparison of changes in the perceptual component of health- behavior in situations of limb injury, namely, assessing the severity of pain in professional athletes and amateur athletes. This direction seems very interesting to us, because of individual health-related cognitions study that it becomes possible to assess the perceived risk of injury, perceptions about its severity, possible benefits and obstacles to rehabilitation, and how these indicators change due to professional specificity. Materials and methods. The study involved 62 athletes - professional athletes and amateurs athletes with limb injuries. We used standardized methods “Index of attitude to health” (SD. Deryabo, VA. Yasvin, 1999), “Questionnaire for the study of health-preserving activity” (NV. Yakovleva, VV. Yakovlev, 2012), “Numeric Rating Scale for pain (NRS)” (M. McCaffery, A. Beebe, 1993), “Level of subjective control” (EF Bazhin, EA Golynkina, AM Etkind, 1984). Mathematical and statistical analysis was carried out using the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U-test, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. Results. The data obtained indicate an increased threshold for the perception of pain by professional athletes. It coincides with the concept of “risk culture”. According to “risk-culture” professional athletes haven’t demonstrated high level of pain. In addition, a relationship was found between the intensity of pain perception and the internal locus of control, self-efficacy in relation to health, in contrast to amateur athletes. Conclusion. The results demonstrate that health as an instrument of professional realization in the understanding of a highly qualified athlete acquires specific meanings, even influencing the perceptive level. It allows us to talk about the deformational impact of professional activity.

Keywordsprofessional specificity, health saving behavior, pain perception, sports injury, professional athletes, sports of the highest achievements, limb injury.

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For citation: Lyubov A. Malikova*, Natalia V. Yakovleva. Professional specificity and pain perception of professional athletes with limb injuries. Russian Journal of Physical Education and Sport. 2020; 15(2): 80-86. DOI: 10.14526/2070-4798-2020-15-2-99-107