Ensuring implementation success: how should coach injury prevention education be improved if we want coaches to deliver safety programmes during training sessions?

Abstract

Coaches play a major role in encouraging and ensuring that participants of their teams adopt appropriate safety practices. However, the extent to which the coaches undertake this role will depend upon their attitudes about injury prevention, their perceptions of what the other coaches usually do and their own beliefs about how much control they have in delivering such programmes. Fifty-one junior netball coaches were surveyed about incorporating the teaching of correct (safe) landing technique during their delivery of training sessions to junior players. Overall, >94% of coaches had strongly positive attitudes towards teaching correct landing technique and >80% had strongly positive perceptions of their own control over delivering such programmes. Coaches' ratings of social norms relating to what others think about teaching safe landing were more positive (>94%) than those relating to what others actually do (63-74%). In conclusion, the junior coaches were generally receptive towards delivering safe landing training programmes in the training sessions they led. Future coach education could include role modelling by prominent coaches so that more community-level coaches are aware that this is a behaviour that many coaches can, and do, engage in.

Preventing overuse shoulder injuries among throwing athletes: a cluster-randomised controlled trial in 660 elite handball players

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The effect of coach and player injury knowledge, attitudes and beliefs on adherence to the FIFA 11+ programme in female youth soccer

“…As adherence to the 11+ does not appear to depend on injury knowledge or beliefs on the part of either coaches or players, it is recommended that studies further examine coach and player motivations for engaging in injury prevention programmes 28. Future studies should also correlate player views to those of their coaches, to account for the influence of coach beliefs on player beliefs, and subsequent team behaviour.…”

“…The questionnaire was based on a previously developed survey of junior netball coaches in Australia 28 40. There were separate coach and player versions of the questionnaire, and both underwent face validation.…”

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