Abstract
Introduction
Wheelchair tennis (WT) players are prone to developing shoulder and upper-limb injuries due to the combination of wheelchair propulsion, overhead activities, and training loads. Despite these characteristics, little is known about possible associations between reported pain and injuries and the psychological health perceptions of experienced athletes. The objective of this study was to verify the existence of correlations between pain in the upper limbs (UL) with psychobiological aspects after the return to activity following the confinement period of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Material and methods
18 WT athletes (16 males and 2 females; age: 31.2 ± 10.4; weight: 65.8 ± 16.8; height: 160 ± 30; BMI: 29.6 ± 21.5) participated in the study. For data collection, five instruments were used: (1) the Disabilities of the Arm Shoulder and Hand questionnaire, (2) the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire, (3) the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire, (4) the Generalized Anxiety Disorder questionnaire and, (5) the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Data were analyzed by correlation and simple linear regressions. We adopted p < 0.05 as the significance threshold.
Results
No significant correlations were found between pain in the upper limbs and psychobiological aspects. However, the dimension of physical and emotional exhaustion correlated with anxiety (R2 = 0.257; p = 0.032) and devaluation in sport was associated with poor sleep quality (R2 = 0.324; p = 0.014).
Conclusions
Although there are no correlations between pain in the upper limbs and psychobiological strain, mental aspects influence each other.