Development of a Standardised System to Classify Injury-Inciting Circumstances in Football: the Football Injury...

Area of Science:

• Sports Medicine
• Biomechanics
• Injury Epidemiology

Background:

• Inconsistent reporting of sport-specific activities complicates injury analysis in football.
• Lack of a standardized system hinders hypothesis generation for injury mechanisms and prevention strategies.
• Accurate reporting of inciting circumstances is crucial for advancing football injury research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a standardized system for classifying inciting circumstances in football injuries.
• To create a reliable framework for reporting injury-related activities and contexts.
• To enhance consistency and comparability in football injury research.

Main Methods:

• Modified Nominal Group Technique involving 12 international sports practitioners and researchers.
• A six-phase development process including idea generation, surveys, and online meetings.
• Consensus defined as ≥70% agreement, with qualitative analysis of open-ended responses.

Main Results:

• A comprehensive classification system for inciting circumstances was successfully developed.
• The system encompasses five domains: contact type, ball situation, physical activity, session details, and contextual information.
• Both core (essential) and optional reporting sets were established, deemed important and user-friendly by the panel.

Conclusions:

• A novel system for classifying inciting circumstances in football has been developed.
• This standardized system can address inconsistencies in the current literature.
• Further studies are recommended to evaluate the reliability of the developed classification system.