Objective. The majority of the literature regarding sports injuries is concentrated on specific characteristics related to sports injuries and injuries at sport activities at all. We strove to establish whether the success of the rehabilitation process can be predicted based on numerous psychosocial variables. Methods. Our sample comprised of 68 competing athletes who underwent an operative knee surgery. The rehabilitation process for athletes lasted one or 6 months; all athletes obtained serious injuries by the standards of National Athletic Injury Reporting System (1). The following variables were measured: coping with pain (SIP 15), rehabilitation behaviours (SIRBS), motivation for rehabilitation, anxiety (STAI X1) and social support. A questionnaire that measures the functioning of the knee (2000 IKDC) was taken as an indicator of the rehabilitation success. Participants were tested both prior to and following the process of rehabilitation. Results. Our results showed that the success of psychological rehabilitation could be predicted from changes in certain psychosocial variables (a decrease in anxiety and an increase in susceptibility, self-efficacy and catastrophizing). After the rehabilitation, only 10 % of athletes were able to reach the criteria of a successful physical and psychological rehabilitation. Conclusions. We can conclude that since selected psychological variables were found to have a high loading on psychological rehabilitation there it makes sense to control these variables. Izhodišča. Večina raziskav s področja športnih poškodb se nanaša na specifične značilnosti, ki sprožijo, napovedujejo ali preprečujejo športne poškodbe. Raziskava preučuje možnost napovedovanja uspešnosti rehabilitacije na osnovi psiholoških značilnosti poškodovanih športnikov, in sicer spoprijemanja z bolečino, vedenja v procesu rehabilitacije (SIRBS), motivacije za rehabilitacijo, tesnobe kot stanja in socialne opore. Metode. V raziskavo je bilo vključenih 68 športnikov po operaciji kolena zaradi resne poškodbe, definirane na osnovi izbranega sistema (1). Rehabilitacijski proces je trajal en mesec ali šest mesecev. Udeleženci so bili psihološko obravnavani pred procesom rehabilitacije in po njem. Rezultati. Rezultati so pokazali, da je uspešnost rehabilitacije večja, če se zmanjša anksioznost in poveča dojemljivost ter zaznata samoučinkovitost in katastrofiziranje. Le za 10 % športnikov lahko rečemo, da je bila pri njih rehabilitacija uspešna. Zaključki. Na osnovi raziskave lahko rečemo, da se konstruktivna vedenja, povezana z rehabilitacijo, povezujejo s psihološko rehabilitacijo poškodovanih športnikov.