Competitive floorball over the last decade: a scoping review.

Area of Science:

• Sports Science
• Kinesiology
• Exercise Physiology

Background:

• Floorball is a rapidly growing global indoor sport.
• Sport science literature significantly underrepresents floorball research.
• This gap hinders evidence-based development for the sport.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review and categorize peer-reviewed research on competitive floorball from 2014-2024.
• To identify research trends and knowledge gaps in floorball science.
• To guide future research directions in this developing sport.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature search across Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus.
• Inclusion criteria applied to 310 identified studies, with 55 selected for analysis.
• Thematic analysis used to categorize and synthesize findings.

Main Results:

• Research primarily focused on health aspects, particularly injury epidemiology and prevention in youth and female athletes.
• Fewer studies investigated psychology, performance, skills, nutrition, or equipment.
• Predominant research designs were cross-sectional with small sample sizes, lacking longitudinal or interventional approaches.

Conclusions:

• Floorball research is fragmented but growing, with notable progress in health and injury prevention.
• Significant gaps exist in performance analysis, training, tactics, recovery, and psychological domains.
• Future research requires more diverse and robust methodologies to build a stronger evidence base for floorball.