Relationship between psychosocial dimensions of personality and perception of anxiety, with injury history in elite athletes

Introduction: High-performance sports practice involves both physical challenges and psychosocial factors that influence the performance and well-being of athletes. In this context, both genetic and cultural/social dimensions of personality and the perception of anxiety play a fundamental role in the sporting experience, especially when related to the history of sports injuries. Methods: Thus, the objective of this research was to analyze the dimensions of personality and anxiety in a sample of team athletes, as well as to examine the relationships between these psychosocial variables and their predictive capacity in relation to the severity of sports injuries. A battery of questionnaires was administered to a sample of 63 elite athletes (55.6% men, 44.4% women), aged between 18 and 36 years (M = 22.62; SD = 4.26) and belonging to different team sports. Results: The results indicated that there are significant differences in the psychological dimensions according to the history of injuries. Somatic and cognitive anxiety were significantly associated with the presence and severity of injuries. In addition, temperamental and character dimensions were identified as predictors of injuries. Discussion: These findings suggest that psychosocial variables play a key role in the occurrence and severity of injuries, which may be fundamental for both future research and for professionals applied to high-performance sport..