Effect of an Unsupervised Exercises-Based Athletics Injury Prevention Programme on Injury Complaints Leading to Participation Restriction in Athletics: A Cluster-Randomised Controlled Trial

Abstract

Objective: To test the efficacy of the Athletics Injury Prevention Programme (AIPP) to reduce the percentage of athletes presenting at least one injury complaint leading to participation restriction (ICPR) over an athletics season. Methods: During the 2017–2018 athletics season, we included in this cluster randomised controlled trial (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03307434) 840 athletes randomly assigned (randomisation unit: athletic clubs) to a control group (regular training) or to an intervention group (regular training plus the AIPP 2/week). Using a weekly online questionnaire, athletes reported the ICPR, training and competition exposures, and, for the intervention group, the compliance with the AIPP. The primary outcome was the percentage of athletes presenting at least one ICPR over the study follow-up. Results: A total of 449 and 391 athletes were included in the intervention and control groups, respectively. From them, 68 (15.1%) and 100 (25.6%) athletes, respectively, provided 100% of the requested information during the follow-up (39 weeks). A total of 6 (8.8%) performed the AIPP 2/week or more. The proportion of athletes who had at least one ICPR over the follow-up period was similar in the intervention (64.7%) and control groups (65.0%), with adjusted odds ratios: 0.81 (95% CI 0.36 to 1.85). There were no between-group differences when comparing separately the subgroups corresponding with the different compliance levels. Conclusion: This cluster randomised controlled trial reported no efficacy of the AIPP. However, the overall response proportion and the compliance with the AIPP in the intervention group were low. In individual sports especially, efforts should be first made to improve the implementation and adoption of interventions.

‘What does not kill us can make us stronger’: can we use injury experience as an opportunity to help athletes and their teams engage in injury risk reduction?

“…We are all doing our diligence to manage and treat an injury episode appropriately, and we also are investing in efforts to reduce the risk of the injury 1 3. These should, of course, be continued and improved.…”

French Athletics Stakeholders’ Perceptions of Relevance and Expectations on Injury Prevention

“…on injury prevention in athletics [1,12,19,20]. These efforts thus meet the perception of interest of most stakeholders of all categories (i.e.…”

“…Stakeholders from different categories are of a similar opinion and agree that injury prevention is relevant. This result is important and of interest, since efforts are made by the sports medicine and science research community to try to improve knowledge and measures on injury prevention in athletics 1 12 19 20 . These efforts thus meet the perception of interest of most stakeholders of all categories (i. e. high-level athletes, non-high-level athletes, coaches and health professionals).…”

“…These efforts thus meet the perception of interest of most stakeholders of all categories (i. e. high-level athletes, non-high-level athletes, coaches and health professionals). Although it was a logical and expected result given the magnitude and burden of injuries in athletics 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 19 20 , this is positive and encourages the development of injury prevention measures and implementation in athletics. We hope that such shared positive perception would be of help to improve adherence in comparison to other sports 21 22 .…”

The effectiveness of a golf injury prevention program (GRIPP intervention) compared to the usual warm-up in Dutch golfers: protocol design of a randomized controlled trial

“…We developed an unsupervised program and our program reflects the daily practice. However, these unsupervised programs have problems with adherence and compliance rates [ 30 , 32 ]. For example, an unsupervised intervention study advised future studies in tennis for potential improvement of adherence and exercise quality to test in a coach-based setting [ 30 ].…”