Exploring How Athletes Navigate Identity-Related Changes Following Sport-Related Concussion

Many athletes experience athletic identity disruption following sport-related concussion (SRC), which highlights the need to better understand how athletes navigate such identity-related changes. Through the lens of the social identity model of identity change, we explored the processes through which athletes navigated alterations to their social and personal identities during recovery from their SRC. We gathered data from seven (n = 6 female, n = 1 male; M = 25.1 years) competitive soccer, swimming, ice hockey, and curling athletes via two semistructured interviews and the Social Identity Mapping Tool (Cruwys et al., 2016). We used a reflexive thematic analysis and identified three themes. First, participants said they experienced disruptions to their self-concept during SRC recovery, such as an altered sense of personal identity (e.g., decreased confidence), and perceived changes to role(s) in social groups (i.e., social identity). Whereas some of these identity-related changes were directly tied to their involvement in sport (i.e., athletic identity), others described non-sport-related changes to their self-concept. Second, participants described changes to their identity that persisted beyond SRC recovery. As a result, some athletes said they developed a self-concept that was less focused on their athletic identity. Third, participants explained that the number and compatibility of their identities and perceptions of social support impacted their identity throughout their SRC experience. These findings highlight the myriad ways in which athletes navigate identity-related changes following SRC. Further research is needed to determine how sport and exercise psychology practitioners can intervene and help athletes manage identity disruptions.