| The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of modeling on psychological factors in athletic injury rehabilitation. Specifically, this study examined the effect of viewing multiple coping models on self-perception and general health beliefs of female athletes who had undergone surgery for a torn anterior cruciate ligament. It was hypothesized that a coping-model videotape intervention would have a positive effect on these characteristics, but concomitant changes were not expected with a no-model control group.; The sample consisted of 20 female high-school and university athletes from Ontario, Canada, ranging in age from 14 to 24 years (M = 19.2 years). Before undergoing anterior cruciate surgery, all subjects were randomly assigned to either modeling intervention (n = 10) or control (n = 10) groups. After surgery, intervention subjects viewed a 58-minute coping-model videotape consisting of interviews with female basketball players at various stages of recovery from anterior cruciate surgery. Control group subjects, however, were not exposed to the modeling treatment. Five measures were administered at each of three time periods: immediately after surgery (M = 12 days), 2 months postsurgery, and 4 months after surgery.; Analyses included a series of 2 x 3 (Group x Time) repeated measures MANOVAs on the self-perception and health belief variables. Additionally, qualitative analyses included open-ended responses for both the experimental and control groups to determine what factors affected their rehabilitation from injury. Only time main effects were found, suggesting that psychological characteristics changed for both groups over time. Exploratory follow-up analyses at each time period indicated that modeling-treatment subjects reported higher knee-rehabilitation self-efficacy and perceived athletic competence at Time 1 and 2, respectively, than did control subjects. Qualitative analyses revealed that treatment-group subjects had a more positive attitude toward their recovery and more knowledge about their needs during rehabilitation than control-group subjects. In short, few statistical, but several qualitative, differences were found between the experimental and control groups with respect to self-perception and health beliefs in relation to time postsurgery. Issues related to strength of modeling intervention alone and the need for more in-depth interviews as an approach to injury rehabilitation research are discussed. |
