From pain to care: men's help-seeking behaviour in sports-related musculoskeletal pain and injury

Sports-related musculoskeletal pain and injury are commonly discussed as clinical, biomechanical, or performance-related problems. This mini-review reframes these problems as a men’s health and care-seeking issue in sports and exercise contexts. Before formal diagnosis, rehabilitation, or return-to-sport decisions occur, male athletes and physically active men may face an earlier and less visible process: recognising pain, interpreting its meaning, deciding whether to disclose it, and seeking appropriate support. Drawing on selected literature on men’s help-seeking behaviour, masculinity, sport-related pain, injury disclosure, rehabilitation adherence, prevention, and return-to-sport decision-making, this focused narrative mini-review examines the transition from pain recognition to care-seeking and continued management. Direct evidence specifically examining men’s help-seeking for sports-related musculoskeletal pain and injury remains limited; therefore, general men’s help-seeking research and athlete mental health help-seeking research are not treated as direct evidence for musculoskeletal injury care-seeking. Instead, these related bodies of literature are brought together to develop a men’s health-focused pain-to-care pathway. This pathway links pain recognition, symptom interpretation, disclosure or reporting, consultation or assessment, rehabilitation engagement, prevention adherence, and return-to-sport decision-making. Help-seeking is therefore considered not as a single act of asking for care, but as a continuing pathway shaped by access, trust, stigma, self-reliance, sport culture, communication, and perceived consequences of disclosure. This framing avoids assuming that all men respond to pain in the same way, while highlighting how sport environments may make timely care-seeking easier or harder. Placing sports-related pain and injury within a men’s health framework draws attention to how male sport and exercise participants recognise health concerns, access support, and remain engaged with care. Future research should test this proposed pathway more directly in male sport and exercise populations. Supporting men’s health in sports may require not only preventing injury, but also improving the pathways through which pain becomes visible, discussed, and is appropriately managed.

Men’s health; Care-seeking; Masculinity; Injury disclosure; Pain communication; Rehabilitation adherence; Sport culture; Return-to-sport decision-making

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