Gaelic games players' awareness and use of, and attitudes towards injury prevention exercise programmes

The aim was to determine the awareness of and use of injury prevention exercise programmes (IPEPs) among adult Gaelic games players and to investigate Gaelic games players' attitudes to injury prevention and barriers and facilitators to successful IPEPs use.

A recruitment email was sent to all clubs and county boards throughout Ireland (whose email was available online) and the survey was advertised on social media platforms. Adult players completed an anonymous survey, including awareness, use, and attitudes towards injury prevention and injuries. Frequencies and descriptive statistics were conducted, a chi-squared test was used to assess any differences in awareness and use of IPEPs, a Mann-Whitney U test was used to examine differences between groups for attitudes to injury prevention (men vs women; elite vs non-elite).

A third of players (32.4%) stated awareness of IPEPs. However, only 13.4% correctly identified one. A significantly greater number of men (35.7%) used IPEPs compared to women (26.5%) (p = 0.04). The Activate (65.5%) and GAA15 (32.5%) were most used. Players had a positive attitude towards injury prevention but agreed that injuries were an issue (68.2%) and stated that their coach didn't have enough knowledge how to use IPEPs was a large barrier (41.6%).

Despite this positive attitude to injury prevention and believing injuries are an issue, adoption remains low. Organisations/clubs should educate players on the benefits of using IPEPs and support structures put in place to gain greater implementation, which is critical to mitigating the risk of injury.