Screening of athletes, sport injury registration and prevention (2013-2022)
The long term goal of this project is to reduce the risk, for youth athletes, to sustain injuries (overuse and acute), recurrent injury and pain that reduces participation in sports and thereby enhance increased awareness, performance and health.
Further on, a long term goal is to reduce health care costs. Ultimately, the goal is to deepen the knowledge on how to make youth sports more safe and healthy by scientifically develop theoretical as well as clinical models regarding risk factors and injury prevention.
This project started with that 700 youth athletes in handball, athletics, cross-country skiing, orienteering, down-hill skiing, American football, wakeboard, bowling, cycling, golf, triathlon, and canoeing, from 20 Swedish National Sports High Schools were followed prospectively over 1-2 years (2013-2015). Our results demonstrate that a considerable number of adolescent elite athletes are injured regularly, resulting in serious consequences on sports participation and performance. Sports involvement seems to constitute an important social component for a young elite athlete, and being injured may lead to a loss of identity and experience of loneliness, self-blame or self-criticism. Medical teams are warranted to reduce the unhealthy behaviour, injury risk and help athletes return to sports safely following injury. The next step of this project involves exploring the roles of medical teams at Swedish National Sports High Schools and risk factors for injuries (2022-2024).
The project is financed by The Swedish National Centre for Research in Sports, Karolinska Institutet and the Swedish Sports Confederation.