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Objectives: Injury is a common and challenging experience for many athletes, and return-to-sport outcomes have been persistently poor despite advancements in research and practice. To ameliorate this challenge and to bridge a gap that exists in the sport injury literature between theoretical conceptualization and intervention design, research is needed to explore team-based approaches to professional practice. The current study aimed to begin this work through exploration of a single performance management team (PMT) through 2 injury and rehabilitation cases leading into and across the 2014 Olympic Winter Games. Design: Qualitative, interpretative phenomenological analysis. Method: Interviews were conducted with the 5 members of the PMT (coach, physiotherapist, sport psychology consultant, case manager, and athlete) involved in both injury cases. Lower-order and higher order themes were identified and interpreted through the extent literature. Results: Results indicate that 3 higher order themes interacted to impact the lived experiences of the PMT members across the 2 injury cases. Participants described the sociocultural context that surrounded the team, the individual struggles they faced, and the functioning of the team as the primary contributors to their lived experiences as well as observed rehabilitation outcomes. Conclusions: Findings of this study mirror previous research in team science within the general health care domain, and prompt ongoing exploration of how to improve the experiences for PMT members as well as rehabilitation and return-to-sport outcomes for athletes.

Despite advancements in sport-injury rehabilitation theory and intervention design, return-to-play outcomes remain suboptimal. To explore the current knowledge base in sport-injury rehabilitation, the authors use an existing framework to review and outline gaps in the sport-injury evidence base. Through the lens of this framework they highlight the dearth of literature exploring how professionals approach rehabilitation, which may be one of several factors contributing to persistently poor rehabilitation outcomes. To begin addressing the identified gap in practice, the authors hypothetically apply 3 established team-based approaches from other rehabilitation domains to a single sport-injury case study to provide concrete examples of how team-based practice approaches can be effectively used in the sport domain. Professional-practice implications are discussed alongside areas for future research.

To enhance the specificity of psychological skills training (PST) interventions, the purpose of the current study was to examine stage of change and gender differences in the combination of transtheoretical model (TTM) constructs (i.e., decisional balance pros and cons, self-efficacy, cognitive and behavioral processes of change) among collegiate student-athletes. Participants (N = 602) completed all TTM measures, and a factorial multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to examine the effects of stage of change and gender on the combination of TTM constructs. No significant interaction effect was identified, yet significant main effects of stage of change and gender were identified. Post hoc tests revealed unique linear combinations of decisional balance, self-efficacy, and processes of change for each stage of change contrast. Taken together, study findings may be used to enhance the specificity of behavior change interventions when delivering PST programs to both male and female collegiate student-athletes.