This project aims to investigate the care experiences of elite UK athletes, and their unique care needs. 

 

What do athletes need:

• To perform their best?

• To recover?

• To support their wellbeing?

• To support their personal development?

• To feel safe within their sport environment? 

• To feel respected as an athlete? 

• To feel cared for as a person? 

• To feel supported in their sporting pursuits? 

 

Most research on caring for athletes is focused on performance, injury and illness prevention, and is largely from the perspective of sport physicians, sport therapists, trainers, and coaches. Injury management protocols are created, training programmes are prescribed, policies are implemented by National Governing Bodies and teams – all in the name of care.  

 

But where is the athlete experience and voice? What does care look and feel like to the athletes? What needs do they have? While these protocols, training programmes, and policies are necessary, they often don’t incorporate the perspective or opinions of athletes. As a result, there may be programme and policy gaps that allow for unnecessary harm and lack of care for this unique group of individuals. 

 

This research project aims to fill this important gap, and to explore how elite UK athletes on high performance programmes, pathways, and contracts experience care (or the lack of care), and what their needs are to both perform on the international stage as an athlete, and to achieve overall wellbeing as an individual. 

 

The data collected through the online survey and by athlete interviews will inform several research outputs. Firstly, this research will inform a PhD Dissertation in Social Policy at the University of Edinburgh. The research will also be anonymised and used to publish peer reviewed academic articles in order to share lessons learned and best practice for other researchers, practitioners and sport federations. Finally, the anonymised results of this research will be made publicly available through this website, and shared with National Governing Bodies of Sport in the UK and with UKSport to inform best practice and to help fill any policy or programming gaps identified. 

 

By participating in this research project, your voice as an athlete will be heard, and you may be contributing to a healthier sporting environment. Research has shown that healthier, supportive sport environments in which individuals thrive result in higher performance. A win-win situation. 

 

Data for this project is being collected in two ways: 

1. Through an online survey which will take about 15-20 minutes to complete

2. One-to-one interviews with athletes

 

The survey can be accessed HERE. 

 

If you are interested in being interviewed, please email the lead researcher with the subject “athlete care interview”. 

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This research project has received ethics approval from the University of Edinburgh.