Injury profiles of Australian football players across five, women's and girls' competition levels

Abstract

Objectives: To describe injury profiles of Australian football players and explore trends across five, women's and girls' competition levels.Design: Prospective cohort study.Methods: Injuries were prospectively recorded by team personnel across one or two seasons of Australian football (2017-18 and/or 2018-19) including five, women's and girls' competition levels (elite senior, non-elite senior, high-level junior, non-elite junior (14-17 years), and non-elite junior (10-13 years)). Injury incidence rates were calculated per 1000 hours and injury prevalence calculated for pre-season, early-season, mid-season, and late-season. Descriptive statistics present injury profiles according to activity, body region, pathology, mechanism, and severity.Results: From the 392 included players, 760 injuries were recorded. Overall injury incidence was 20.9 injuries per 1000 hours. Injury prevalence was highest during pre-season (64.1%). Most injuries were to the lower extremity (n = 440; 58.0%). Ligament/joint sprain injuries were common (n = 147, 19.3%). Several injuries resulted from contact mechanisms (n = 314, 61.4%), with many due to contact with another player (n = 131, 52.8%). Injuries resulting in time lost from participation were common (n = 444, 58.9%). Competition level injury trends were observed, with elite senior (125.1 injuries per 1000 hours) and high-level junior (116.9 injuries per 1000 hours) players having greater match injury incidence compared to their non-elite counterparts (15.5-41.4 injuries per 1000 hours).Conclusions: This study provides preliminary insight into injury profiles of Australian football players in women's and girls' competitions. These findings can drive future injury risk reduction research specific to this population across the developmental pathway.

Injury Profile in Youth Female Athletes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Selected studies comprised child and adolescent females participating in soccer (elite [ 30 , 33 , 34 ], high-level [ 32 ], amateur [ 26 , 35 – 40 ] soccer leagues and world [ 28 , 41 ], European [ 42 ] and national [ 43 ] tournaments), handball [ 25 , 44 , 45 ], tennis [ 31 , 46 , 47 ], track and field [ 48 – 50 ] rugby union [ 26 ], Australian Rules football [ 51 ], floorball [ 52 ], volleyball [ 29 , 53 ], cricket [ 27 ], ice hockey [ 54 ], alpine skiing [ 55 ] and basketball [ 56 ] (Table 2 ). Of these studies, five were from England [ 26 , 27 , 30 , 33 , 48 ], four from Sweden [ 46 , 52 , 55 , 57 ], three each from the USA [ 29 , 38 , 53 ] and Canada [ 36 , 54 , 56 ], two each from Australia [ 47 , 51 ], Norway [ 39 , 40 ] and Denmark [ 35 , 44 ], and one each from Chile [ 49 ], Finland [ 32 ], France [ 34 ], Germany [ 25 ], Ireland [ 37 ] and Kenya [ 43 ]. Twenty-seven studies presented in-season data [ 25 – 27 , 29 – 40 , …”

“…Twenty-seven studies presented in-season data [ 25 – 27 , 29 – 40 , 44 , 46 – 56 ], with the remaining five studies presenting tournament data (national tournaments, European Championships and World Championships) [ 28 , 41 – 43 , 45 ]. The majority of studies investigated adolescent athletes ( n = 23) [ 25 – 30 , 34 – 37 , 39 – 42 , 44 – 48 , 50 , 52 , 53 , 55 ], and nine studies covered children and adolescent age ranges [ 31 – 33 , 38 , 43 , 49 , 51 , 54 , 56 ]. Twenty-nine studies [ 25 – 27 , 29 – 36 , 38 – 40 , 42 – 56 ] collected data from a total of 15,908 youth female athletes.…”

“…Three studies [ 28 , 37 , 41 ] presented no information on sample size. Of the 29 studies that reported injury incidence [ 25 , 26 , 28 , 30 – 52 , 54 – 56 ], ten [ 26 , 28 , 30 , 32 – 34 , 36 , 47 , 48 , 51 ] reported information on days lost due to injury (mean days lost and injury burden). Twelve studies reported injury prevalence amongst surveyed athletes [ 26 , 27 , 29 , 31 , 34 , 38 , 42 , 45 , 46 , 50 , 53 , 55 ].…”

Pre-season body composition has minimal influence on in-season match availability, and match performance in female Australian Football League (AFLW) players

“…It is likely that sufficient body mass (comprising muscle and fat) is required to absorb these forces and protect players from injury. Given the elite women's game is characterized by a greater proportion of contact injuries ( 9 ), and more contested possessions, tackles and stoppages per minute of play than the elite men's game (all of which increase the frequency of collisions) ( 5 ), it was hypothesized that greater muscle and body mass (as opposed to its composition) would be associated with higher match availability and performance ( 5 , 30 ). However, in our study, no body composition characteristic, including total body mass, was associated with in-season match availability, suggesting other factors may be more influential in this relationship.…”

“…However, AFLW has been observed to be a tighter, more crowded game, with a greater number of tackles, errors and contested possessions observed per minute of match play compared with the AFL ( 5 ). This may help explain the differences in injury epidemiology between the two competitions with AFLW players seven times more likely to sustain an ACL injury than AFL players ( 6 , 7 ) and AFLW players experiencing a greater proportion of contact injuries ( 8 , 9 ). Conversely, the incidence of hamstring injuries in AFLW players are only a quarter of that of AFL players which may be due to the lower quantity of high-speed running that AFLW players undertake ( 2 , 3 ).…”