ABSTRACT
Injuries are typically considered an undesired outcome of sport participation, and can elicit a range of unpleasant cognitive appraisals and emotional responses. For some athletes, engaging in religious acts has been found to be an important way of coping with this (Czech, Wrisberg, Fisher, Thompson, and Hayes, 2004; Watson and Czech, 2005). Research findings have advocated for the inclusion of members of faith into injury rehabilitation, particularly when an athlete has sustained a career-ending injury (Arvinen-Barrow et al., 2015). However, sports medicine professionals have indicated that while addressing spiritual concerns can have a positive effect on the therapeutic rehabilitation outcomes, it was not their responsibility to address such concerns (McKnight and Juillerat, 2011). Despite the previously mentioned, the literature regarding the use of religion and spirituality has primarily been limited to life-threatening and terminal conditions (Johnstone and Yoon, 2009). As a result, this chapter aims to highlight the role of religion and spirituality in the sport injury rehabilitation context. It will: (1) introduce relevant theoretical and empirical evidence; (2) provide best practice guidelines for the incorporation of religion and spirituality in sport injury rehabilitation; and (3) present a case example highlighting the use of religion in sport injury rehabilitation.
