Football injuries on synthetic turf fields

Football injuries that occur during football matches played on synthetic fields and the features of these injuries were investigated and the data was pursued for the prevention and reduction of these injuries.

All adolescent and adult trauma cases who admitted to the Emergency Department with football injuries on synthetic fields were retrospectively investigated. Nine hundred and eighty-five male cases were detected with a mean age of 30.1±4.2 years (range 15-57 years). Age, gender, times of admittance to the Emergency Department, site of injury, type of injury, and clinical result data of the cases were examined.

19:00 to 24:00 hours (n=852, 86.5%) and weekdays were the most frequent admittance times. It was detected that lower-extremities (n=583, 59.2%) were the most commonly affected body parts and the upper-extremity injuries (n=281, 28.6%) and the head and neck injuries (n=75, 7.6%) were the second and third most commonly seen injuries, respectively.The most frequently observed injury types were contusions, abrasions and hematomas in all cases (n=364, 37.0%). Sprains/strains were the second most common types of injuries (n=343, 34.8%). When the final diagnoses of all cases were examined, it was determined that the anterior talofibular ligament injuries were the second most frequent after soft-tissue injuries (n=217, 22%).

Football matches on synthetic fields can lead to serious orthopedic injuries. Investigation of the mechanisms of these injuries, which cause workday and economic losses, will be a guide for the future studies on the prevention of these injuries.