Bigi Elisabetta [ Reggio Emilia, Italy]
Contri Angela [Cento, Italy]
Menozzi Andrea [Reggio Emilia, Italy]
Dancers face a high risk of sustaining one or more injuries during their career. Despite dealing with pain almost daily, many dancers report experiencing fear and anxiety related to injury and believing in a stigma existing around the injured dancer. Dancers often tend to hide symptoms, self-manage pain and delay reporting injury to healthcare professionals, possibly making long-standing problems worse. This may be due to the strict culture diffused in many dance environments, high competitivity between dancers and the often uncertain work conditions.
Research shows better outcomes in terms of dancers satisfaction and confidence and a more positive relationship with the medical profession in countries where dance medicine experts are easy to reach for dancers (eg. The Netherlands). Up to date, there are no studies investigating these aspects in Italy, where dance medicine is far less developed compared to other Western countries.
This qualitative, cross-sectional study aims at understanding the experience of Italian dancers with injury by investigating their thought, beliefs and behaviors related to the topic.
Study population: Professional dancers or students who dance >8 hours/week regardless of age, sex and dance style will be included in the study, including those who are unable or limited in their activity due to an injury at the present time. Dancers who could not participate in group interviews due to language barriers will not be included.
Participants will be aggregated in focus groups and administered semi-structured interviews questioning experience, thoughts and beliefs about injury. Those who cannot take part to group interviews will be administered the interviews online. All participant will have to complete a demographic and anamnestic questionnaire and the Italian Dance functional outcome Survey (DFOS)
The Interviews will be recorded and then transcribed for qualitative and thematic data analysis, using the Framework Methods and NVivo Software
This is study is a work in progress. Participants recruiting is currently in progress.
Interviews are expected to take place in June-July 2024 and data analysis in August-September. The study should be completed by October 2024.
Researchers expect dancers to report one or more recent injuries, and experiences of fear, anxiety, insecurity and social stigma related to injury. Researchers also expect dancers to report strategies of self-management of pain and hiding injury or delaying injury reporting.
This will be the first study collecting qualitative data on injury experience amongst Italian Dancers. Results from this study should highlight the unique needs and psychosocial characteristics of the dance population, and could be used to enhance adequate strategies for injury prevention, treatment, and education interventions.
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