What are the facilitators and barriers to develop a running-related injury prevention program? A qualitative study

Knowing the facilitators and barriers of the development process of prevention programs in advance may prevent setbacks to occur and may even enable strategies to explore the facilitators and to deal with and/or avoid possible barriers.

To investigate the facilitators and barriers of the development process of a running-related injury (RRI) prevention program.

This was a qualitative study conducted with semi-structured face-to-face interviews with participants from the development of the RunIn3 RRI prevention program. The analysis on facilitators and barriers was performed following a content analysis approach. All participants enrolled in the development of the RunIn3 program were invited to participate in this study (n = 10). The interviews were conducted and recorded until saturation. Qualitative data from interview transcripts were grouped into condensed meaning units, codes, categories and themes, and were analyzed descriptively.

Nine participants were included in this study. Overall, 17 categories were identified: six facilitators (35.3%) and 11 barriers (64.7%). The facilitators were reported 55.1% of the time (frequency of emerging themes [FET] = 43/78) and the barriers were reported 44.9% of the time (FET = 35/78). The most frequent categories classified as facilitators were 'group meeting' (32.6%, FET = 14/43) and 'form of contact' (20.9%, FET = 9/43). The most frequent categories classified as barriers were 'absence of participants' (22.9%, FET = 8/35) and 'ramblings' (20.0%, FET = 7/35).

The facilitators were more frequently reported than the barriers related to the development of the RRI prevention program, based on FET. These results may help in future endeavors toward the development of sports injury prevention programs.