The protective role of psychological resilience in the recovery of children’s athletic sports injuries: a mechanistic study based on emotion regulation and self-efficacy

Abstract

Purpose: This study explored the protective role of psychological resilience in children’s sports injury recovery, and verified the chain mediating effect of emotion regulation (cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression) and sports self-efficacy, to provide empirical evidence for psychological intervention in children’s injury rehabilitation. Methods: A total of 128 injured children aged 8–12 years were selected via cluster sampling from the school (March 2024–March 2025). A 6-month follow-up (T0: baseline, T1: 3 months, T2: 6 months) was performed with scales measuring psychological resilience, emotion regulation (child version), sports self-efficacy, and injury recovery progress. SPSS 26.0 was used for descriptive and correlation analyses, and Mplus 8.3 for longitudinal mediation and chain mediation models. Results: This study uses longitudinal mediation analysis to explore associative pathways, acknowledging unmeasured confounders may influence results. Baseline resilience was positively correlated with T1/T2 recovery (r = 0.407, 0.462; both p < 0.001). β = 0.196 is consistently reported for T0 resilience → T1 self-efficacy, but negatively predicted T1 expressive suppression (β = −0.179, p < 0.05); T1 self-efficacy was positively associated with T2 recovery (β = 0.372, p < 0.001). Key limitations include single-time-point measurements of resilience (T0 only) and self-efficacy (T1 only), which restrict causal inference. Two chain paths were significant: “resilience → cognitive reappraisal → self-efficacy → recovery” (indirect effect = 0.098, 95% CI = [0.065, 0.131]) and “resilience → expressive suppression → self-efficacy → recovery” (indirect effect = −0.029, 95% CI = [−0.048, −0.012]), with total mediation accounting for 37.9% of total effect. This study uses longitudinal mediation analysis to explore associations, acknowledging unmeasured confounders may influence results. Conclusion: Resilience affects recovery via two chains: improving cognitive reappraisal to enhance self-efficacy, and reducing expressive suppression to boost self-efficacy. Cognitive reappraisal is a more positive mediating path and a core target for psychological intervention.