MURAT TOMRUK, MELDA SOYSAL TOMRUK, GÖNÜL KILAVUZ ÖREN, SELVER BULUT, HASAN ÖZBEK
Türk Fen ve Sağlık Dergisi - 2023;4(1):55-63
Purpose: Since anxiety and musculoskeletal discomfort can affect dancers separately both physically and psychologically throughout their dance life, revealing the relationship between level of anxiety and musculoskeletal discomfort could be beneficial for the development of approaches to prevent injuries occurring in different body parts. This study aimed to determine the relationship between sport injury anxiety and musculoskeletal discomfort in folk dancers and to analyze body parts with this point of view. Material and Methods: Fifty-four folk dancers whose mean (SD) age and BMI were 23.04 (4.29) years and 22.61 (3.36) kg/m2, respectively, participated in the study (37 males, 17 females). Sport injury anxiety was assessed using the Sports Injury Anxiety Scale while the frequency and severity of musculoskeletal discomfort were assessed with the Cornell Musculoskeletal Discomfort Questionnaire. The correlation coefficients were calculated using Spearman test. Results: Overall musculoskeletal discomfort positively and moderately correlated with total sport injury anxiety in folk dancers (p=0.001, r=0.442). On the other hand, sport injury anxiety was significantly related to musculoskeletal discomfort in neck, both legs and left foot alone when body part analyzed (p<0.05). In addition, some dance-related features were also found to be associated with anxiety and discomfort, separately (p<0.05). Conclusion: Keeping anxiety level to a minimum could help to reduce musculoskeletal discomfort in dancers. We believe that musculoskeletal discomfort could be minimized and dance performance could be increased by applying approaches that combat anxiety in dancers. Besides, dancers with musculoskeletal discomfort in the lower extremities should be evaluated for injury anxiety.
