Elite para athletes with active coping behaviour are less likely to report a sports injury.

Objective: Elite para athletes report a high incidence of sports injuries. Research suggests that athletes' strategies to manage adversities may influence the sports injury risk, but knowledge about para athletes' coping behaviours and their association with injuries is limited. The aim was to describe the distribution of coping behaviours in Swedish elite para athletes by sex, age, impairment, sport and to examine associations between coping behaviours and the probability of reporting a prospective sports injury during a 52-week study period.

Method: Eighty-three para athletes participating in the 'Sports-related injuries and illnesses in Paralympic sport study' completed the Brief COPE Inventory. Over the following 52 weeks, athletes reported any sports injuries they sustained. The analysis of coping behaviours comprised descriptive statistics and linear regression, and associations between coping behaviour and the probability of being injured were examined by logistic regression analyses.

Results: The most frequently used coping behaviours were acceptance, active coping and planning. The most common less-useful coping behaviour was self-blame. Athletes with more active coping behaviours were less likely to report an injury, and using humour as coping behaviour was associated with a higher probability of injury among young athletes. Also, athletes with physical impairment reported a higher use of active coping and emotional support compared with athletes with visual impairment, and athletes participating in individual sports used acceptance as a coping behaviour to a larger extent than athletes in team sports.

Conclusion: Use of active coping in Swedish elite para athletes was associated with a lower likelihood of reporting an injury. Young athletes using humour as a coping strategy had a higher likelihood of reporting an injury. The results suggest that support of active coping behaviours and a sport context fostering help-seeking behaviours should be considered in future prevention measures.