This study is designed to evaluate the effects of a pain neuroscience education program in pain perception, wellness and pain catastrophizing of youth athletes. For this, an experimental study with an intervention group (IG) and a control group (CG) is designed. During 12 weeks of the 2022-2023 season, CG will receive a self-care education program, with information about health habits in the sport (rest, nutrition, body care and recovery). Meanwhile, IG will also receive a pain neuroscience education program, with information about biological, psychological and perceptual aspect of pain in the sports context. The study will be developed in the Sport High Performance Centre of Balearic Islands, from January to May. All athletes from this sports centre will be invited to participate in the study throughout an e-mail invitation from their sport regional federation. Prior to the beginning of the study, all participants will sign the inform consent. The Ethical Committee of the local university approved this study (280CER22). One week before intervention period, all athletes will be required to complete questionnaire about sociodemographic and sportive data (age, sex, and sport experience). Body mass and height will be also evaluated. Also, all the athletes will be required to complete three questionnaires about pain level, wellness and pain catastrophizing. Pain level and wellness will be evaluated prior to the start of the intervention and weekly, until finishing the intervention period. The pain catastrophizing level will be evaluated before and after the intervention period of the study. We hypothesized that those athletes who receive the pain neuroscience education program will increase wellness and decrease pain level and catastrophizing perception compared to those athletes who received a self-care educational program.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
DOUBLE
Enrollment
40
1. Types of pain (peripherical and central pain) 2. Pain as information. 3. Benign and harmful pain 4. Psychological factors and pain in sport (Injuries, catastrophizing and pain)
1. The importance of resting 2. Nutritional habits 3. Recovery techniques for athletes 4. Principles of stretching, strengthening and endurance training
Sport High Performance Center of Balearic Islands
Palma de Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain
Wellness level
It is composed by seven questions about wellness, perceived effort, training volume. Wellness was assessed throughout four questions about the subjective perception of the quality of sleep, the amount of stress, the level of perceived fatigue, mood and perceived muscle damage. Each question is individually scored from 1 ("Very, very low, or very, very good") to 5 ("Very, very high, or very, very bad"), being 25 the maximal punctuation.
Time frame: Change from baseline and between group differences in wellness during and after the intervention period of 12 weeks
Pain level
Pain intensity is assessed by using the Pain Visual Analog Scale (VAS, 0-10), ranging from 0 (no pain) to 10 (the worst imaginable pain). In case of pain existence, anatomical location, duration (days), sports practice affection (yes/no) were also collected
Time frame: Change from baseline and between group differences in pain during and after the intervention period of 12 weeks
Pain catastrophizing level
It is designed to evaluate the catastrophizing level of athletes throughout the Pain Catastrophism Scale (PCS). The PCS assesses catastrophic level associated to pain experience through thirteen 4-points Likert items (from 0, not at all, to 4, all the time). Apart from global Catastrophism, PCS evaluates four subscales regarding rumination, helplessness, and magnification. The maximal score is 50 points.
Time frame: Change from baseline and between group differences in pain catastrophizing after the intervention period of 12 weeks
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