A qualitative investigation into the individual injury burden of amateur rugby players

Objective: To examine the individual experiences of injury burden in amateur Rugby players across the onset of injury, rehabilitation, and return to play. Design: Qualitative. Setting: Irish amateur Rugby clubs. Participants: Three male and two female Rugby players who sustained a severe injury that resulted in a time loss of at least 28 days. Main outcome measures: Semi-structured interviews were used to explore the injury burden experienced during the three phases of injury. Results: Hierarchical content analysis revealed 36 codes representing individual injury burden, which were clustered into seven themes across personal (emotional reaction; impact on performance or involvement; lack of knowledge; severity of injury and incapacitation) and situational (exposure to others playing; negative experiences with treatment or rehabilitation; societal burden) dimensions. Conclusions: The findings indicate that individual injury experiences can affect a player’s recovery and rehabilitation outcome, potentially extending the injury process and affecting player availability for the team. As such, injury management should focus on alleviating any injury-related burden experienced by players, as well as burden placed on the team, to maximise rehabilitation outcomes.