Have personological traits a role on rehabilitation after knee ligament surgery?

Surgical reconstruction treatment is suggested for football players after Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injury to have more chances to return to pre-injury level. After surgery a functional rehabilitation is needed to ensure the desired level of recovery. The rehabilitation period can last several months and needs to continue till the full functional recovery, including on-field specific rehabilitation. In this long period the athlete needs to have psychological and motivational characteristics to get the best outcome. Psychological aspects are emphasized in recent literature as having a role that influences the final result. The purpose of our study is to explore the relationships between personality traits and indices of rehabilitation (both about the process and the outcome), in order to identify the personological variables that could represent protective and risk factors for rehabilitation and consequently to customize strategies based on personological traits. Among the Big five, the only personological trait correlated with the outcome of the treatment is Energy/extraversion that is negative correlated with Tegner scores both pre-injury and at one year follow-up (P<0.05). Energy extraversion is negative correlated with number of isokinetic tests (P<0.01) such as conscientiousness (P<0.01); Emotional Stability is negative correlated with the number of gym sessions (P<0.05); Mental Openness is positive correlated with the numbers of threshold test (P<0.05).