Karolinska football Injury Cohort - KIC. Risk factors for football related injuries in young female football players

A prospective study that follows 13-16 year old female football players weekly over one year to identify risk factors for injuries related to football.

Background

Many of the nearly 100,000 licensed football-playing women in Sweden are young, and the risk of injuries in this group is high. Lower extremities are most vulnerable and also the location for most severe injuries. There are few studies on risk factors for overuse injuries for young football-playing girls or for injuries to the hip, back and neck. Injuries can lead to career ending for athletes, mental illness and are costly for players as well as for society.

Purpose

The aim of this project is to establish the incidence of injuries and complaints in all body locations in young football-playing girls and identify modifiable risk factors for these injuries and complaints divided in traumatic injuries and overuse injuries. The focus will be on hip, trunk, back and neck injuries/pain. Factor that will be studied are the results of clinical screening of lower extremities, hip, trunk, back and neck. Moreover, factors such as previous injuries, health, lifestyle, socioeconomic factors, and football related factors, psychological and psychosocial factors will be studied.

Method

This study includes 600 adolescent female football players aged 13-16. At baseline, a comprehensive questionnaire is used to capture potential risk factors such as general health factors, health, lifestyle, socioeconomic factors, football-related factors and psychological and psychosocial factors. Clinical tests are carried out to measure strength and/or mobility in the neck, back, hip, knee and ankles. The primary outcome is football related injuries and complaints recorded via a weekly web survey over 52 weeks to capture data that potentially limited the players’ ability to play/and or perform.

Significance

Identifying risk factors for injuries related to football in adolescent female football players is important to be able to propose preventive measures.