It’s widely known that physical or sexual abuse can cause psychological and physical harm. Abuse can occur anywhere from the workplace or home to on the field, and its long-term effects are undeniable. But unbeknownst to many, sexual or physical abuse can increase the risk of sports-related injuries. Toomas Timpka, the lead researcher at the Athletics Research Center at Linköping University in Sweden, studied the consequences of physical and sexual abuse on Swedish athletes and their performance.
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In Timpka’s study, he surveyed 197 elite female athletes in Sweden for their experiences of abuse. He found that the relationship between abuse and risk of injury was most pronounced in female athletes. Physical abuse correlated with a higher risk of sports injuries by a factor of 12, and sexual abuse correlated with a higher risk of non-sports injuries by a factor of 8. One explanation Timpka proposed was as abused athletes tend to place all the blame on themselves, they carry emotional scars that can affect on-field performance. This psychological burden can make them feel unsafe in their environments and lead to risky behavior. In other words, they may defy instructions from their coaches or trainers and engage in activities such as overusing their muscles or failing to rehabilitate soreness that can cause injury.
Although Timpka discovered an association between abuse and injury risk in athletes, he emphasized that more multidisciplinary research needs to be done, for example in fields of epidemiology, sports psychology, and skeletal system research. As critical as it is to analyze the physical component of athletes’ health, equal importance should be placed on the mental aspect, including the effects of abuse. With the help of multiple field specialists including clinical psychologists, child psychiatrists, and sports physicians, we can learn the full picture of why and how injuries affect athletes’ on-field performance.
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