Author Identifier

Myles C. Murphy: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6068-1096

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Title

Journal of Clinical Medicine

Volume

14

Issue

2

Publisher

MDPI

School

Nutrition and Health Innovation Research Institute / School of Medical and Health Sciences

Comments

White, G., Bright, F., Rio, E. K., Chimenti, R. L., & Murphy, M. C. (2025). Do anxiety, depression, fear of movement and fear of achilles rupture correlate with achilles tendinopathy pain, symptoms or physical function?. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 14(2), 473. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm14020473

Abstract

Objectives: To determine if psychological factors, such as anxiety, depression, fear of movement and fear of rupture are associated with increased tendon-related disability, quantified by the Tendinopathy Severity Assessment-Achilles (TENDINS-A). Design: Cross-sectional. Setting: Online Qualtrics survey. Participants: Sixty-eight participants (54% female) with Achilles tendinopathy and a mean (standard deviation) age of 40.1 (12.6) years. Main Outcome Measures: The TENDINS-A (including subscales of pain; symptoms such as stiffness; physical function), Patient Health Questionnaire-9, General Anxiety Disorder-7, Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia and fear of tendon rupture. Associations were evaluated using generalised linear models (adjusting for age and sex), with significance accepted when p < 0.05. Results: Anxiety symptoms were positively associated with Achilles pain (p = 0.035), symptoms (p = 0.045) and physical function (p = 0.019). Depressive symptoms were negatively associated with symptoms (p = 0.045) but not pain (p = 0.078) or physical function (p = 0.429). Fear of movement was not associated with pain (p = 0.479), symptoms (p = 0.915) or physical function (p = 0.064). Fear of rupture was associated with pain (p = 0.042), but not symptoms (p = 0.797) or physical function (p = 0.509). Conclusions: Our research demonstrated anxiety symptoms and fear of rupture, not fear of movement or depressive symptoms, are positively associated with the severity of tendon-related disability. Therefore, clinicians should include an assessment anxiety symptoms and fear of rupture in their practice.

DOI

10.3390/jcm14020473

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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