Preventing Injuries in Young Football Players

Preventing Injuries in Young Football Players: a Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial

Football is the most popular sport in the world, with 260 million male and female active participants, including ~113,000 FIFA registered professional players. Playing football is fun and can provide many health benefits, however, it also presents a high injury risk. Studies on elite and non-elite footballers have reported similar injury rates in both genders. The most common football-related injuries are the knee and ankle ligament and thigh muscle strains, Over the past two decades, significant advancement has been made in the field of injury prevention in football. There are used trials to prevent specific injuries, as ankle sprain, ACL injuries, hamstring strains, etc. On the other hand, there are created programs designed to prevent a wider spectrum of injuries like FIFA11+.

Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the effect of a new injury prevention program on the overall injury incidence in young football players.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Injury Prevention
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Injury prevention program

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 1027
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Rilind Obertinca, MSc. Phd Student.; Phone Number: +383 49 255 664; Email: rilind.obertinca1@gmail.com
• Study Contact Backup: Name: Karen aus der Fünten, MD.; Email: k.ausderfuenten@mx.uni-saarland.de

Study Locations

• Kosovo
  • Gjakove, Kosovo
    • University of Gjakova

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 13 years to 19 years (Child, Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

officially registered football club in the football federation of Kosovo players must be between 13-19 years old regular training must take place at least three times per week

Exclusion Criteria:

teams already using an injury prevention program injured players

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Intervention; The intervention group will use the new injury prevention program at least twice per week in their training sessions.	Other: Injury prevention program; The execution of the program takes 10-15 minutes. The program will be performed in the training sessions, after the usual warm-up. The program is based on scientific evidence that has previously shown good efficacy on injury prevention in football. The exercise categories address 7 aspects: Balance; Core stability; Hamstring eccentrics; Glute activation; Plyometrics; Running; Games The games are included with the aim to increase the attractiveness of the program. Each category contains 2 exercises and the coach is free to decide which one to choose in every training session. All exercises are organized in five or six levels with increasing difficulty (physically and cognitively).
No Intervention: Control; The control group will continue their usual training routine.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Time Frame
Overall injury rate	up to 9 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Universität des Saarlandes

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): September 4, 2021
• Primary Completion (Actual): May 29, 2022
• Study Completion (Actual): January 21, 2023

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: November 18, 2021
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 18, 2021
• First Posted (Actual): November 30, 2021

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 20, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 19, 2023
• Last Verified: April 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Wounds and Injuries
• Other Study ID Numbers: Injury Prevention Study 21/22

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: UNDECIDED

Drug and device information, study documents

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