Prevention of Injuries in Young Athletics (Track and Field) Athletes

Prevention of Injuries in Young Athletics (Track and Field) Athletes: Initiation of Life-long Sports Health Literacy - KLUB§ Athletics

The long-term purpose of an on-going participatory action research program "The KLUB-study" in Sweden, that involves scientists and representatives from all levels of athletics, is to develop a sustainable framework for safe athletics (track and field) training for child athletes born 2002-2006. The first part of the research program, a 1-year longitudinal study analysing training and injury data, was completed in November 2017. The present study sets out to evaluate a website that aims to support coaches and caregivers in their role as adult key stakeholders to foster young athletes to become adult athletes who possess the tools to maintain a healthy sporting lifestyle.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Sports Injury
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Active group

Detailed Description

The intervention will be implemented in youth athletics and evaluated in a randomised controlled trial (RCT). It will follow the consensus guidelines for studies in athletics and be reported according to the CONSORT checklist. The participating clubs will be randomly allocated into active and control group. The active group will be provided the intervention program, i.e. access to a website, aimed to support coaches, caregivers´ and athletes' and improve knowledge and health literacy to make more informed choices that promote health. The control group will continue to train according to their routines and will get access to the website after 4 months.

The participants will be assessed at three times, at the beginning of the study (T1), after four months (T2), at ten months (T3) and additional prospective data on training and injury will be collected during the first four months (T1b).

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 140
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Sweden
  • Stockholm, Sweden
    • Swedish Athletics

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 12 years to 16 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• belonging to a sports club and participate in organized training, athletics (track and field)
• born 2002 - 2006

Exclusion Criteria:

• not, on a regular basis, participating in athletics (track and field) training

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Active group; The active group will be provided the intervention program, i.e. access to a website.	Other: Active group; For this study, the Frisk.Friidrott (Healthy.Athletics/Track&Field) website has been developed. The purpose of the website is to provide an easy-to-use tool that can assist coaches and parents involved in youth athletics with information how to structure training and recovery planning, provide guidance on possible injuries, and provide other information on health for youth athletes.
No Intervention: Control group; The control group will continue to train according to their routines and will get access to the website after 4 months.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Injury incidence	The primary outcome measure will be time from study entry to the first reported injury event	four months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Health literacy	Evaluate health literacy using Swedish versions of; The Japanese Communicative and Critical Health literacy scale (adults) and the Health Literacy for School-aged Children (HLSAC) instrument (youth athletes)	four and ten months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Linkoeping University
• Collaborators: Swedish Athletics Association

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Moher D, Hopewell S, Schulz KF, Montori V, Gotzsche PC, Devereaux PJ, Elbourne D, Egger M, Altman DG; CONSORT. CONSORT 2010 explanation and elaboration: updated guidelines for reporting parallel group randomised trials. Int J Surg. 2012;10(1):28-55. doi: 10.1016/j.ijsu.2011.10.001. Epub 2011 Oct 12.
• Jacobsson J, Timpka T, Ekberg J, Kowalski J, Nilsson S, Renstrom P. Design of a protocol for large-scale epidemiological studies in individual sports: the Swedish Athletics injury study. Br J Sports Med. 2010 Dec;44(15):1106-11. doi: 10.1136/bjsm.2009.067678. Epub 2010 May 19.
• Timpka T, Alonso JM, Jacobsson J, Junge A, Branco P, Clarsen B, Kowalski J, Mountjoy M, Nilsson S, Pluim B, Renstrom P, Ronsen O, Steffen K, Edouard P. Injury and illness definitions and data collection procedures for use in epidemiological studies in Athletics (track and field): consensus statement. Br J Sports Med. 2014 Apr;48(7):483-90. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2013-093241.
• Jacobsson J, Bergin D, Timpka T, Nyce JM, Dahlstrom O. Injuries in youth track and field are perceived to have multiple-level causes that call for ecological (holistic-developmental) interventions: A national sporting community perceptions and experiences. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2018 Jan;28(1):348-355. doi: 10.1111/sms.12929. Epub 2017 Aug 4.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): March 18, 2018
• Primary Completion (Actual): July 20, 2018
• Study Completion (Actual): February 1, 2019

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 23, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 7, 2018
• First Posted (Actual): March 8, 2018

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): October 1, 2019
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 30, 2019
• Last Verified: September 1, 2019

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Wounds and Injuries; Athletic Injuries
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2017/520-31

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: No

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No