Practical Guidelines for Athlete's Injury and Illness Surveillance: A Narrative Review

Area of Science:

• Sports Medicine
• Public Health
• Epidemiology

Background:

• Sports participation carries a significant risk of injury and illness.
• Prevention of sports-related health problems is a key objective for clinicians and researchers.
• Robust injury and illness surveillance programs are foundational for effective prevention strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review literature on injury and illness surveillance in sports.
• To identify key definitions, methods, and variables for effective surveillance.
• To explore the impact and effectiveness of different surveillance approaches.

Main Methods:

• A narrative review of papers was conducted.
• Included studies addressed definitional issues, data reporting, impact assessment, and comparative approaches to surveillance.
• Focused on literature from the past 30 years concerning health problem surveillance in sports.

Main Results:

• The literature highlights the need for clearly defined terms and consistent reporting in sports injury and illness surveillance.
• A core set of variables is essential for appropriate surveillance, including location, tissue/pathology type, relation to sports activity, onset, mechanism, and severity.
• Effective surveillance requires standardized definitions and timely, secure data collection.

Conclusions:

• Standardized definitions and consistent data collection are critical for accurate sports injury and illness surveillance.
• Implementing a core set of variables enhances the utility of surveillance data for prevention.
• Clinicians and researchers should adopt these features for robust health problem surveillance in sports.