Football performance and medical practitioners, working with injured players are often focused on physical aspects (e.g. tissue healing) and other objective physical markers such as strength, power and function when contributing to the shared return to play decision making process. Being physically ready to return to training and competition is important so that the player can cope with the physical demands of the sport for best performance. However, being mentally ready to return is also important for return to sport and return to performance (1). The level of a player`s confidence has been highlighted as one area that could be useful to consider throughout rehabilitation and prior to returning to training / competition (2) Despite this, there are scant evidence-based recommendations particularly in elite football that the practitioner can look to, to guide his or her practice in assessing confidence in the injured athlete/player. One tool that may be helpful is the Injury-Psychological Readiness to Return to Sport scale (I-PRRS) (3). The I-PRRS consists of 6 questions relating to the athlete`s confidence in general, and specifically concerning their injury. There is preliminary evidence that the questionnaire is valid and reliable in an athletic population (3). Adding a measure of psychological readiness to return to sport into the plethora of physical measures used, may provide a useful tool in the decision-making process. Aim. The aim of this case report is to illustrate how a short, ports-relevant questionnaire can be implemented in practice to assess psychological readiness to return to elite football.
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