Svenska elittränares perspektiv på behandling av långtidsskadade adepter : en kvalitativ intervjustudie inkluderande elittränare inom handboll och längdskidåkning

Sammanfattning

For elite athletes, training sessions, matches and competitions are daily activities. These constitutes physiological as well as psychological challenges. Therefore, both internal and external factors imply risks that injuries in different forms occur, either less complicated or more complicated. Earlier studies tell us that injuries that prevent elite athletes to exercise according to their original plan, might bring considerable psychological challenges during the athletes recovery processes. These include e.g ambivalence related to alternative goal settings, self doubt and lacking internal motivation. Simultaneously, studies show that these athletes perceive their relationship and the quality of the dialogue with their coaches as a crucial factor facilitating their recovery process. The purpose of this thesis was to examine the perspectives with a selection of Swedish elite coaches within handball and cross country skiing on working together with long term injured athletes and their perceived importance for long-term injured athletes. This by conducting and recording semi-structured interviews related to the subject with these coaches, and thereafter a qualitative analysis of the raw data using an inductive, thematic method. The findings in this study claim the importance of clear communication between coaches, injured athletes and medical staff to identify and act in accordance with the circumstances for the athlete, and to maintain focus on healing process and a long term perspective during planning of training for long term injured athletes. They also show that coaches might face situations that they perceive challenging considering the interpersonal aspects, e.g to get access to right information for them to act upon, when taking the athletes challenges into account, and that intrapersonal aspects, e.g coping with internal and external pressure, in some cases might affect coaches abilities to maintain a long term perspective in a negative way.