Abstract:

Injury is one of the crucial realities of sportive performance. This reality exposes athletes to physical and mental traumas. The emotional burdens evident from the injury are effective in athletes' recovery processes and require constructing multifaceted support programs. This requirement directs the increase of qualified publications based on theoretical and experimental research. Drawing the outlines of the picture presented by the increasing publications numbers, this study aims to reveal the bibliometric analysis of sports injuries psychology through visual mapping. Thus, the 1985-2022 dated publications of the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) defined in the Web of Science database were examined. Among these, 200 publications determined to be research articles were included in the study. Visualizing bibliometric data, the VOSviewer 1.6.18 was used. The study examined publication year, author, citation number, and journal distribution. Authors, institutions, and international relations were also questioned, and keyword analysis, bibliometric coupling, and co-citation network analysis were performed. Findings showed that the most publications were in 2019-2022, with 38 articles. According to the citation analysis, Wiese-Bjornstal et al. is the most cited author, the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology the most cited journal, Springfield College the most cited institution, and the USA is the most cited country. The results confirm that the keyword clusters that stand out in the research are rehabilitation, psychology, social support and athletic injury, stress, and recovery. In the analysis made for research summaries context, four main keyword clusters became prominent: psychology, rehabilitation, injury, and sports injury.

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