Associations of harmonious and obsessive passion with attitudes toward playing through pain and injury among Chinese collegiate pickleball athletes: the mediating role of pain catastrophizing

IntroductionThis study examined the associations among harmonious passion, obsessive passion, pain catastrophizing, and attitudes toward playing through pain and injury among Chinese collegiate pickleball athletes. It was hypothesized that harmonious passion would be associated with lower pain catastrophizing and stronger opposition to playing through pain and injury, whereas obsessive passion would be associated with higher pain catastrophizing and stronger acceptance of such behavior. Pain catastrophizing was expected to be associated with weaker acceptance of playing through pain and injury and to show indirect associations linking both forms of passion with attitudes toward playing through pain and injury.MethodsSurvey data were collected from 500 collegiate pickleball athletes in China. Harmonious passion and obsessive passion were assessed using the Passion Scale, pain catastrophizing was measured with the Pain Catastrophizing Scale, and attitudes toward playing through pain and injury were assessed with the Chinese version of the Risk, Pain, and Injury Questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis and reliability analysis supported the validity and reliability of the measures, and the hypothesized relationships were tested using structural equation modeling and bootstrap analyses.ResultsThe results showed that harmonious passion was associated with lower pain catastrophizing and stronger opposition to playing through pain and injury, whereas obsessive passion was associated with higher pain catastrophizing and stronger acceptance of such behavior. Contrary to the original hypothesis, pain catastrophizing was associated with stronger acceptance of playing through pain and injury. Bootstrap analyses indicated statistically significant but small indirect associations through pain catastrophizing in the relationships of both harmonious passion and obsessive passion with attitudes toward playing through pain and injury.DiscussionThese findings suggest that attitudes toward playing through pain and injury among collegiate pickleball athletes may be understood in relation to passion quality and pain-related cognitive appraisal, while the indirect role of pain catastrophizing should be interpreted as modest.