Sports injuries can have serious, long-term health implications for athletes (Putukian, 2016) and is a leading cause of athletes` retirement (Ristolainen et al., 2012). Injury occurrence is associated with less successful team performance can have a significant impact on business and asset management. Hence, whether you are most concerned with the health, performance, or financial implications, reducing the risk of sports injuries is pertinent for sports organisations. Given these considerations, practitioners should try to reduce the risk of injury (Gledhill et al., 2018). Yet, despite the robust evidence demonstrating that psychological factors can increase the risk of acute (e.g., Ivarsson et al., 2017) and overuse (e.g., Tranaeus et al., 2014) injuries, psychological factors are not as well-recognised or planned for as physical factors. This lack of recognition of, or planning for, psychological considerations may be due to potential concerns surrounding uncertainty about the evidence-base regarding psychological factors, a lack of awareness of the benefits of psychological strategies, or resource constraints (e.g., finances). To address these concerns, the purpose of the expert statement is to outline the prominent psychological risk factors for sports injury and provide real-world suggestions which can help sport and exercise scientists reduce sports injury risk.
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