IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v22y2025i1p76-d1562864.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Patterns of Change in Athletic Identity After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction

Author

Listed:
  • Britton W. Brewer

    (Department of Psychology, Springfield College, 263 Alden Street, Springfield, MA 01109, USA)

  • Rachel Shinnick

    (Department of Counseling & School Psychology, University of Massachusetts Boston, 100 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, MA 02125, USA)

  • Allen E. Cornelius

    (School of Psychology, Fielding Graduate University, 2020 De La Vina Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93105, USA)

  • Judy L. Van Raalte

    (Department of Psychology, Springfield College, 263 Alden Street, Springfield, MA 01109, USA)

  • Fahimeh Badiei

    (Department of Psychology, Springfield College, 263 Alden Street, Springfield, MA 01109, USA)

Abstract

Changes in athletic identity have been documented after injury and other sport transitions in nomothetic investigations. Patterns of change in athletic identity after injury have not been examined systematically at the individual level. In the current study, secondary analyses were performed on two data sets ( N = 43 and N = 80) in which athletic identity values were available for before and at least six months after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. A stable pattern of athletic identity was most common (48–68% of participants), followed, respectively, by a decreasing pattern (19–45% of participants) and an increasing pattern (7–14% of participants) in both data sets, with a trend toward a decreasing pattern over time in the data set in which athletic identity values were available up to two years after surgery. Partial support was obtained for the claim that decreases in athletic identity after ACL surgery are related to postoperative perceptions of knee symptoms and function. The current intraindividual findings complement the results of nomothetic studies and suggest that although stability of athletic identity after sport injury seems to be the norm, changes in athletic identity are also common and should be considered in applied work with athletes who have sustained injuries.

Suggested Citation

  • Britton W. Brewer & Rachel Shinnick & Allen E. Cornelius & Judy L. Van Raalte & Fahimeh Badiei, 2025. "Patterns of Change in Athletic Identity After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 22(1), pages 1-11, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:22:y:2025:i:1:p:76-:d:1562864
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/22/1/76/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/22/1/76/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    knee; self-identity; surgery;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:22:y:2025:i:1:p:76-:d:1562864. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.