Type D Personality and Injury Relationship in Collegiate Track Athletes

The purpose of this study was to examine Type D personality as an internal factor for injury risk in collegiate track athletes. A survey was administered to 275 track athletes across each of the three NCAA divisions. The survey included general questions about injury history, which included demographic type questions. A Type D Personality Inventory assessment was administered which measured negative affectivity and social inhibition (Blum, 2009). Additionally, the survey included a version of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), measuring an athlete’s evaluation of situations that invokes a stress response (Cohen et al, 1983). Lastly, the survey included the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory (ACSI) ((Smith et al, 1994), which measures an athlete’s psychological skills. Skills measured in this section included; coping under adversity, coach ability, concentration, confidence, goal setting, peaking under pressure, and freedom from worry. Logistic Regression results revealed that Type D personality is a significant factor for predicting athletic injury in collegiate track athletes. However, a discriminate analysis with the two factors of Type D personality, negative affectivity and social inhibition, revealed that only negative affectivity significantly predicted injury. Coping skills and perceived stress both had significant impacts on negative affectivity. Due to social inhibitions insignificant effect on predicting injury, it was not further looked into. Findings from this study provide essential information to athletic programs, coaches and athletes aiming to reduce injury risk among collegiate track athletes