"The Show Must go on" : The Experience of Injuries Among Dancers: Fears, Thoughts, and Beliefs. A Qualitative Study

"The Show Must go on". The Experience of Injuries Among Dancers: Fears, Thoughts, and Beliefs. A Qualitative Study

This qualitative, cross-sectional study aims at describing the experience of Italian dancers with injury.

Dancers face a high risk of sustaining one or more injuries during their career (87-94%), which may lead to physical, psychological, and socioeconomic consequences affecting dancer's lives and careers both short and long-term.

Dancers report fearing injury and its consequences and believing in the existence of a stigma around injury and injured colleagues; many of them also try to self-manage pain and delay reporting injuries to healthcare professionals, possibly making its outcomes worse.

This study will collect data from dancers via focus groups and individual interviews, investigating dancers' experiences, thoughts, and beliefs about injury. Records from the interviews will be transcribed ad verbatim and analyzed using the framework method to synthetize the data and highlight the most meaningful content.

Understanding dancers' thoughts and behaviors regarding past or possible future injuries may be beneficial in improving treatment efficacy and designing adequate education and prevention strategies. It may also help raise awareness of dancers' complex and unique needs, and the importance of having accessible, specialized professionals around dance companies and schools.

Study Overview

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Conditions: Stress, Psychological; Injuries; Injury;Sports; Dancing
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Focus group or interview

Detailed Description

The dance world is a complex setting characterized by high injury risk, high competitivity, high prevalence of risk-taking behaviors, low socio-economic support and a cultural exaltation of sacrifice and pushing through pain and injury to go dancing. With the rapid development of dance medicine and science in the last few decades, it has been highlithed that dancers face a high risk of sustaining one or more injuries during their career, which often come with harsh physical, psychological and economic consequences.

Recent studies show that a great number of dancers are afraid of injury and believe in the existence of a "stigma" surrounding injury and injured colleagues; those who stop dancing report feelings of isolation, insecurity and low confidence in full recovery.

In addition to this, dancers often delay seeking medical attention and treatment when they suspect an injury and try to keep dancing through pain (ignoring symptoms, modifying their activity and/or using painkillers) or relay on non-medical specialist, possibly worsening the outcomes of said injury.

There seems to be a negative halo surrounding injury, and also a mismatch between the high medical needs of the dance population and their healthcare-seeking behaviors.

Research shows trends are slowly getting better in context where dance medicine is well developed and easily available to dancers, especially in larger dance companies, but there is still much to be done.

This research aims to describe the experience of dancers with injury to understand the reasons behind their thoughts and behaviors. Untangling the complex dancer-injury-context relationship will help in in improving care delivery efficacy and designing adequate and specific education and prevention strategies.

Collecting data from questionaires and semi-structured interviews, this study will investigate:

• What is perceived as "injury" by dancers and what will mean for them to sustain an injury
• How dancers cope with pain and behave when suspecting an injury
• What dancers think of a colleague who has to stop dancing because of an injury, and what role their specific context (teachers, choreographers, caregivers) play in this
• What dancers think will help in reducing injury risk and bargain, if they believe it possible
• The functional status of dancers taking part in the interview, past or present history of injury, Dance Functional Outcome Score (DFOS) This research will employ qualitative methods to collect and analyze data, allowing in-depht exploration of dancers' opinions and experiences.

Volounteer participants will be recruited from dance schools and companies in different locations around Italy.

Focus group interviews will be arranged within small groups of dancers (4-8 at a time), accommodating participants in individual interviews if logistical or personal challenges arise. Anagraphic data and the DFOS will be collected by questionnaires prior to the interviews.

The interviews will be sistematically recorded and transcribed ad verbatim to undergo the process of qualitative analysis using the framework method, allowing to extract the most recurrent themes and highlight meaningful insights.

Results from this research may help in improving care delivery efficacy and designing adequate and specific education and prevention strategies, promoting dancers' physical and psychological well-being.

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Estimated): 40

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Angela Contri, MA; Phone Number: +393478824741; Email: angela.contri@unimore.it
• Study Contact Backup: Name: Elisabetta Bigi, BA; Phone Number: +393703205690; Email: elisabetta.bigi@studenti.unisi.it

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Dancers and pre-professional dance students who train 8 hours/week or more

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Individuals who train in dance (any style) 8 hours/week or more
• Individuals who ususally train in dance 8 hours/week or more but have temporarilly suspended their activity due to injury or other condition

Exclusion Criteria:

• Individuals who do not wish to partecipate or do not give consent to data treatment
• Individuals who do not speak Italian or English

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Number of groups / cohorts

1

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort

Intervention / Treatment

Dancers; Dancers or dance students who pracitce at least 8 hours/week

Other: Focus group or interview; Focus groups and qualitative interview will be conducted with dancers investigating thoughts, beliefs and behaviors related to injury. Individual interviews (in presence or online) will be hold as alternative if it will not be possible (due to logistical or personal problems) to participate in a focus group or if the number of people who would have agreed to participate in that focus group is less than 3

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Experience and perception of injury amongst dancers	Evaluation of dancers' experience and perception of injury, including the meaning of the term "injury", description of injury-related behaviors that happend in the past or may be applied in the future, description of injury-related emotions (such as fear), and thoughts. Information will be collected via semi-structured interviews and then undergo qualitative analisys	120 minutes

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Understanding of injury prevention and pain management amongst dancers	Evaluation of what dancers believe to be injury prevention and how they manage pain in their activity. Information will be collected via semi-structured interviews and then undergo qualitative analisys	120 minutes

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Siena
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Elisabetta Bigi, BA, University of Siena

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• McEwen K, Young K. Ballet and pain: reflections on a risk-dance culture. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health (2011) 3:2, 152-173
• Vassallo AJ, Pappas E, Stamatakis E, Hiller CE. Injury Fear, Stigma, and Reporting in Professional Dancers. Saf Health Work. 2019 Sep;10(3):260-264. doi: 10.1016/j.shaw.2019.03.001. Epub 2019 Mar 23.
• Air M. Health care seeking behavior and perceptions of the medical profession among pre- and post-retirement age Dutch dancers. J Dance Med Sci. 2009;13(2):42-50.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Estimated): April 1, 2024
• Primary Completion (Estimated): October 30, 2024
• Study Completion (Estimated): April 1, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: March 31, 2024
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 31, 2024
• First Posted (Actual): April 5, 2024

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 5, 2024
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 31, 2024
• Last Verified: March 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Anxiety; Prevention; Qualitative research; Stress, Psychological; Fear; Injury; Quality Assurance, Health Care; Dancing; Dancer; Ballet; Injury, sports; Modern dancing
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavioral Symptoms; Wounds and Injuries; Stress, Psychological; Athletic Injuries
• Other Study ID Numbers: MASF_Dancers01

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: UNDECIDED
• IPD Plan Description: Recording will be anonymised and transcripted verbatim. This anonimised material could be shared with other researchers on request

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No