A typological understanding of medical support in sport: What do we know and what’s next?

Abstract

This article develops a typological understanding of medical support in sporting contexts. Based on the findings of a narrative literature review of social scientific studies, it outlines how medical support in sport can be usefully framed by four interrelated but conceptually distinct ideal types. These include affiliated, transient, independent and pseudo medical support. This understanding leads to the introduction of several avenues for further investigation, with an emphasis on exploring the boundaries and flexibility within different types of medical support through athletes’ perspectives and experiences, the impact of internet-based pseudo ‘medical’ knowledge and the need for research from without the Western/Global North setting to highlight differences in a currently under-researched area of the field. We welcome scholars to critically engage with our ideas so as to refine, test and reconsider them in light of empirical observations.