MINDFULNESS: A NEW CONCEPT IN THE SPORTS INJURIES’ PREVENTION?

1. MINDFULNESS: A NEW CONCEPT IN THE SPORTS INJURIES’ PREVENTION? Solé, S., Palmi,J. (PhD) INEFC, Lleida University, Lleida, Spain Methods A literature research was undertaken using Medline, Psychinfo, Web of Science, Cochrane, Ebscohost, Isi Web of Knowledge databases and references of retrieved articles. The search included original articles, books and dissertations published up to 2012. For the final selection the books and dissertations were excluded. The main search terms were mindfulness, sports, stress, sport injury, and risk factor, in different combinations as needed. All articles were coded for their design, type of control, study population, and outcome measures. Seven studieswere considered eligible for the present review and are presented in the next table. Introduction Mindfulness is defined as the nonjudgmental focus of one’s attention on the experience that occurs in the present moment (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). There are many mindfulness-based therapies such as Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction or MBSR ( Kabat-Zinn, Op. Cit) and Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy or MBCT (Segal, Williams, Teasdale, 2002) and they are being used for different health problems such as chronic pain, anxiety and depression, stress, psoriasis or cancer. The aim of this study is to identify the actual use of mindfulness therapies in sports psychology and to investigate the possible aplications of this concept in the prevention and treatment of sports’ injuries. SCALES: PSWQ (Penn State Worry Questionnaire), SAS (Sport Anxiety Scale), AAQ-16 (Acceptance and Action Questionnaire), SPQ (Sport Performance Questionnaire), YSQ-SF (Young Schema Questionnaire-Short Form), AAQ-R (Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-Revised), OMSAT-3 (Ottawa Mental Skills), BQ (Background Questionnaire), TOQS (Thought Ocurrence Questionnaire for Sport), MPS (Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale), KIMS (Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills), CEM (Workshop and Expectations Measure), TMS (Toronto Mindfulness Scale), PQ (Postworkshop Questionnaire), DFS-2 (Dispositional Flow Scale-2), DML (Daily Mindfulness Log), DSPL (Daily Sport Performance Log), FSS-2 (Flow State Scale-2), EXT (Exit Questionnaire), PCQ (Performance Classification Questionnaire), PHMS (Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale), AAQ-2 (Action and Acceptance Questionnaire-2), MAAS (Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale), CAMS-R (Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale-Revised) , AQ (Archery Questionnaire), GQ (Golf Questionnaire), RQ (Runner Questionnaire), FQ (Follow Up Questionnaire), FQ-R (Follow-up Questionnaire for Runners) , CSCI (Carolina Sport Confidence Inventory). References Birrer, D., Rothlin, P., & Morgan, G. (2012). Mindfulness to enhance athletic performance: theoretical considerations and possible impact mechanisms. Mindfulness. DOI 10.1007/s12671-012-0109-2 Gardner, F., & Moore, Z. (2009). A Mindfulness-Acceptance-Commitment-Based approach to athletic performance enhancement: theoretical considerations. Behavior Therapy, 35, 707-723. Jackson, S.A., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1999). Flow in sports: The key to optimal experience and performances. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full catastrophe living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain and illness. New York: Delacourte. Kauffman, K., Glass, C., & Arnkoff, D. (2009). Evaluation of Mindful Sport Performance Enhancement (MSPE): a new approach to promote flow in athletes. Journal of Clinical Sports Psychology, 4, 334-356. Palmi, J. (2001). Visión psico-social en la intervención de la lesión deportiva. Cuadernos de psicología del deporte, 1, 69-80. Discussion and Conclussions The use of mindfulness in sports psychology is very new and it’s been focused in enhancing athletes’ performance (Birrer, 2012) In our review we observed the next findings: there are a few number of studies, with little samples and most of them are nonrandomized studies.We also find three case studies. Most of them use two new mindfulness-based interventions: MSPE and MAC, with a very well defined intervention protocols. There is not yet sufficient evidence to determinate the magnitude of the effects of these interventions due to the methodological limitations of the studies. But the results could suggest that these two mindfulness-based interventions, the Mindfulness-Acceptance-Commitment-Based Approach (MAC) and Mindfulness Sport Performance Enhancement (MSPE) can be helpful to enhance performance in sport. They also increase the levels of mindfulness, concentration, acceptation, sense of control, awareness of bodily sensations and decreases the stress and anxiety levels. These are important variables and risk factors for sports’ injuries prevention and rehabilitation as well. To our knowledge, there are no studies using these interventions to prevent sports’ injuries but the influence of psycho-social factors is well known (Andersen & Williams, 1993, Heil, 1993, Palmi, 2001). The benefits for the athletes of this new psychological approach in different variables such as concentration levels, mindfulness, acceptance or anxiety levels could be used in the prevention and treatment of sports’ injuries. They are being used only to enhance performance for the moment. New mindfulness-based interventions for prevention and treatment of sport’s injuries, adapted to different sports and athletes are suggested and will be the objective of future studies. CONTACT ADRESSES jpalmi@inefc.es ssole@inefc.es