Conocimiento de autolesiones en el deporte: mirada educativa para prevenir y acompañar

Abstract

Self-injury was identified as a strategy used by athletes to manage intense emotions and temporarily relieve emotional and social distress, highlighting the need to address this phenomenon in sports training from an educational and preventive perspective. The aim of the study was to explore the knowledge that coaches and adolescent athletes had about self-injury, in order to understand their perceptions and experiences and provide an empirical foundation to guide future educational interventions. The research was conducted using a qualitative approach. Data collection techniques included experiential self-reporting and semi-structured interviews. The sample consisted of 38 female handball players aged 15 to 18 years (M = 16.5, SD = 1.2) and three sports coaches, selected based on convenience and availability criteria, with prior informed consent. Data were processed using Atlas.ti 9, which enabled frequency and code co-occurrence analyses. The results revealed a limited conceptual understanding of self-injury, a lack of mental health training, and indirect recognition of risk signals. The athletes reported negative emotional experiences such as anger, disgust, rejection, anxiety, and fear, along with self-injurious behaviors linked to competitive pressure and coach demands, often carried out on body areas that were easy to conceal. It was concluded that disciplinary knowledge about self-injury in sports was insufficient and that emotional education content should be incorporated into the training of coaches and athletes. The study offered an innovative perspective for the prevention of self-injurious behaviors in Cuban sports contexts.