Rehabilitation adherence in sport injury: sport physiotherapists' perceptions.

CONTEXT Athlete's adherence behavior can influence the outcome of a rehabilitation program. OBJECTIVE To draw on sport physiotherapists' expert knowledge to increase understanding of adherence issues in practice and identify factors that influence adherence and strategies that can be used to enhance adherence. DESIGN An interview design with inductive content analysis. PARTICIPANTS Nine (6 women and 3 men) experienced sports physiotherapists. RESULTS Under-adherence and over-adherence were issues in practice for some practitioners, and adherence was viewed as important for successful recovery from injury. Three higher order themes emerged relating to the influence of athlete characteristics, situational characteristics, and characteristics of the injury and rehabilitation on both facilitating and preventing rehabilitation adherence. Strategies to improve adherence in practice emerged from the data and broadly addressed the key determinants of adherence. CONCLUSION Adherence to rehabilitation is influenced by a number of factors and strategies to enhance adherence are identified.