Abstract

Athletes aiming at high achievement often experience physical pain. Therefore it is important to understand what pain coping strategies they employ. In addition, we need to consider the type of experienced pain. Having said that, the goal of our research was to clarify what pain coping strategies athletes use and how these strategies are related to the type of experienced pain. For the current research we chose three types of pain, namely muscle pain, healing injury pain and far-gone pain. The research was divided into two parts. In the first part we used semi-structural interview and questioned 7 male athletes, representing boxing, wrestling, cycling and track-and-field. These athletes answered open-ended questions about pain coping strategies that they use. In the second part of the research 50 athletes representing track-and-field, rowing, cycling and swimming filled in PMS-I questionnaire (Kleinert, 2002). This questionnaire is comprised of 27 items and helps to evaluate the use of 8 pain coping strategies (0 – never, 5 – always). The results showed that athletes choose different pain coping strategies on a behavioral as well as cognitive level. The preference is given to such strategies as positive self-instructions (M = 3.42; 3.09; 3.33), relaxation (M = 3.00; 3.31; 2.80), setting of goals (M = 2.52; 2.55; 2.70), physical activity (M = 2.64; 2.21; 2.39). The least used strategy is resignation (M = 1.53; 1.41; 1.36). The comparison of pain coping strategies for different types of pain showed that relaxation and search for information were two strategies used more frequently for healing injury pain and far-gone pain than for muscle pain, while resignation strategy used more frequent for muscle pain than for far-gone pain. Conclusions: 1. The preference is given to adaptive pain coping strategies such as positive self-instruction, relaxation and search for information, while the least used strategy is resignation. 2. The frequency of the use of pain coping strategies varies depending on the type of pain. 3. Athletes use pain coping strategies intuitively. Therefore it is worthwhile to consider educating athletes on pain management. Verf.-Referat