[Validation of a sport injury locus of control scale].
BACKGROUND
In the area of health psychology, locus of control (LOC) [Psychol Monogr 80 (1966) 1-28] has consistently been considered as a dimension of personality which may entail many potential benefits for the individual.


RESULTS
Originally, the LOC by Rotter [Psychol Monogr 80 (1966) 1-28] is a unidimensional concept. He defines: on one hand individuals with an internal LOC who establish a link between their behavior and the reinforcement obtained, and on the other hand, individuals with an external LOC who do not establish any link between their behavior and the reinforcement obtained. However, since Rotter, other authors like Levenson [Distinctions within the concept of internal-external control: development of a new scale. In: Proceedings of the 80th annual convention of the American psychological association. 1972. p. 261-2] have claimed a multidimensional concept with three factors: the internal (I), powerful other (P), and chance (C). The MHLCS was constructed with three factors, according to Levenson's model. Numerous scales have been designed in order to assess health-related LOC. The most widely used is the MHLCS [Health Educ Monogr 6 (1978) 160-170]. According to Lecocq [La réhabilitation après la blessure. In: Manuel de psychologie du sport : l'intervention auprès du sportif. Paris: Revue EPS; 2003. p. 377-402], such a multidimensional view would allow in-depth examinations of sport injuries. Indeed, from a theoretical perspective, sport participants with high LOC ratings are assumed to suffer less frequent injuries than those scoring low on this dimension.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of the present paper is to present an adapted version of the MHLCS in French language. For Bruchon-Schweitzer [Bruchon-Schweitzer M, Dantzer R. Introduction à la psychologie de la santé. Paris: Presses universitaires de France; 1994], the three factors (I, P, and C) are independent or a little intercorrelated. Therefore, two models of sport injury LOC scale have been studied: the first with three independent factors and the second with three dependent factors.


METHODS
Two hundred and sixty sports science students (170 boys and 90 girls) aged 20-26 years (S.D.=1.25 years) filled in the scale on site. We then ran a confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA) using the LISREL 8.30 software.


RESULTS
The CFA results on both models are satisfying. However, the Chi square difference observed between the two models (chi(2)=32, ddl=3) clearly shows that the second model is more satisfying. Indeed, there seems to be a positive correlation between I and P, and a negative correlation between I and C. The second correlation result confirms Rotter's theory. A possible explanation of the first correlation would be that putting your health in the hands of medical staff is like having an indirect control over it. However, the variance percentage analysis on each item shows acceptable results for all items but four. This could be explained by the fact that Items 1 and 9 refer to healing after injury whereas the other items refer to the start of the injury. To conclude, it appears that this scale is generally satisfying, and can be a useful tool for research on the LOC and its influence on sports injuries.
Paquet
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Y
Laboratoire de psychologie appliquée, UFR Staps, 51687 Reims cedex, France. yvan.paquet@univ-reims.fr
D000328:Adult; D001265:Athletic Injuries / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires