The moderating effects of social support and playing status on the life stress-injury relationship

Abstract

This study prospectively investigated the moderating effects of social support and playing status (i.e., starter vs. non-starter) on the life stress-iqiury relationship in collegiate football players. Playing status moderated the utility of life stress and social support as predictors of athletic injury. For starters, subjective satisfaction with social support moderated the negative life stress-injury relationship. Spacifidly, increases in negative life stress and subjective satisfaction with social support were associated with dcmeases in number of severe injuries, games missed, and time loss due to injury. No stress-injury relationships emerged for non-starters. Implications for future research are discussed.