A qualitative study on the benefits of counselling with long term injured amateur footballers

Abstract

This study looks at understanding the perception of mental health in amateur sport focussing on long term injured athletes. The views of athletes were sought to gain a personal account of experience and the views of physiotherapists were sought to gain a more professional opinion. A qualitative study was used to explore emerging themes using semi structured questioning. The main findings were that injured athletes do suffer from isolation, anxiety and depression during injured stages but very few athletes could recognise counselling as a resource. A recommendation of the study is to promote mental health awareness amongst amateur sports clubs reducing any stigma which may reside. The loss an athlete feels when injured is comparable to the grieving process and this researcher sought to implement the tasks of overcoming grief towards the injury process (Worden, 2009) . Author keywords: Physical education and training, emotion, counselling, mental health