Sports injuries can occur at any level, ranging from pre-high school to professional. Programs have been developed to reduce the rate and seriousness of these injuries; however, a new study has found that programs to prevent leg and foot injuries are unpopular among high school coaches. The findings were published online in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport by researchers at the University of Oregon and the Slocum Center for Orthopedics and Sports Medicine in Eugene, Oregon.
The study authors note that despite the documented effectiveness of injury prevention programs to reduce sport-related injury risk, evidence exists that there is a lack of widespread adoption of these programs by high school coaches. Therefore, they conducted a study to determine factors related to non-adoption of injury prevention programs by evaluating coaches’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to them; in addition, they compared attitudes between coaches who adopted the programs and those that did not.
The study group comprised 141 head soccer and basketball coaches from 15 Oregon high schools. They were asked to complete an Internet survey that evaluated their injury prevention program-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors.
The investigators found that among the 66 coaches that completed the survey, 52% reported being aware of injury prevention programs, 21% reported using an injury prevention program with their team, and 9% reported having their student-athletes perform the injury prevention programs exactly as designed. No obvious differences in the attitudes towards the importance of injury prevention or the effectiveness of injury prevention programs were identified between coaches that did and did not adopt an injury prevention program. Key factors underlying the coaches’ decisions to not adopt a program were perceptions that effective injury prevention programs do not offer a relative advantage over coaches’ existing practices, do not align with coaches’ needs (compatibility), and are difficult to implement in their setting (complexity). Of those that did report adopting an injury prevention program, 6 0f 14 (43%) reported implementing the program as designed.
The authors concluded that improving preventative practices of high school coaches requires more than improved information propagation to increase coach awareness. To improve the rate of injury prevention program adoption and implementation commitment, coach education should address issues related to relative advantage, compatibility, and complexity.
An article published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine by UCLA and USC observed more than 5,000 football players from 87 high schools in California for 2 seasons (2001 and 2002). The highest rates of injury were found among football players. Players sustained 25.5 injuries per 100 players, 9.3 injuries per 10,000 player-hours, and 8.4 injuries per 100 session-hours. Session rates were highest during games, on artificial turf (13.8 of 100), during foggy weather (25.1 of 100), and on clear evenings (21 of 100). Offensive and defensive backfielders were found to have an approximately 20% increased rate of injury compared with linemen. The adjusted injury rate for starters was 60% higher than the rate for nonstarters. The authors concluded that risk differed by experience, playing position, and surface types.
