The experiences of healthcare professionals interacting with injured athletes in Singapore : a phenomenological approach

• Main Author: Nur Syahidah Rostam
• Other Authors: Nicholas Giles Aplin
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Science
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/70197
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Past studies have found that healthcare professionals are encountered with the challenge of returning injured athletes to active involvement in sport as quickly as possible but at the same time as safely as possible. The purpose of this research is to describe, analyse and interpret the comprehensive accounts of the experiences of healthcare professionals interacting with injured athletes in Singapore based on the fastest yet safest rehabilitation of these athletes. Phenomenological interviews were used to gain rich and descriptive accounts of the lived experiences of the interaction between healthcare professionals and injured athletes. The interviews were audio recorded separately for each participant and were free from distractions. Three allied healthcare professionals and three injured athletes were selected based on purposive sampling in which they had common experiences about the studied phenomena. Epoché or personal bracketing was adopted which was to set aside biases and preconceptions about the participants or the phenomenon under research. Interview answers were transcribed and analysed using a combination of systematic data analysis developed by Creswell and Moustakas which was documented by making sense of participants’ experiences and categorizing concepts of interaction between healthcare professionals and injured athletes. Results suggests that healthcare professionals need to be convincing, tactful, assertive, practise mutual respect and be open-minded when interacting with injured athletes in Singapore which are all consistent with previous studies. Therefore, healthcare professionals need to treat injured athletes differently from other patients for them to return to sports quickly yet safely. Keywords: healthcare professionals, injured athletes, interact