1 Before you use it
What it is
The measure that explains why physically ready athletes don't go back. Twelve items across three constructs — emotions, confidence in performance, and risk appraisal. A 6-item short form exists.
This is the ACL page's psychological half, and it belongs beside the strength and hop battery, not after it.
When to reach for it
Post-ACL reconstruction and after significant knee injury, from mid-rehabilitation onward — not just at the return-to-sport visit, because by then it is too late to do anything about it.
Repeat it. It is a modifiable target.
Patterns it serves · 1
2 Giving it
Scoring
Twelve items to 0–100. Higher means greater psychological readiness.
What it doesn’t measure
Strength, hop symmetry, or graft status. It is one half of a return-to-sport decision, and the other half is objective.
Repeat it
3 Reading the score
Interpreting it
Interpret against baseline and track it over time.
The clinically important pattern is divergence: limb symmetry index rising while ACL-RSI stays flat. That athlete passes the physical battery and does not return — and the fix is graded exposure and confidence, not more strength.
Is the change real?
On placement
Six months post-reconstruction, limb symmetry index has climbed to 92%. ACL-RSI was 41 at three months and is 48 today.
Read it as a 7-point rise, well under the 13.6-point floor of the verified MCID — a figure that itself moves with time since reconstruction, measured in an ACL reconstruction cohort. The knee is ready; the athlete isn't, and the two curves are diverging.
Do graded exposure to the feared tasks — cutting, contact, the pitch — and re-rate at the next milestone. More strength work will not move this number.
Student trap. Measuring it once, at the end. If you find low readiness at the return-to-sport visit you've found it three months late.
Official source: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. We don't host the form.
This is a learning tool. It does not diagnose patients and does not replace your clinical educator.
Did this page do its job?
CliniStudy is in beta. One tap is enough — it decides what gets fixed first.