The SMS, Phone, and medical Examination sports injury surveillance system is a feasible and valid approach to measuring handball exposure, injury occurrence, and consequences in elite youth sport

Abstract

Current methods of sports injury surveillance are limited by lack of medical validation of self-reported injuries and/or incomplete information about injury consequences beyond time loss from sport. The aims of this study were to (a) evaluate the feasibility of the SMS, Phone, and medical Examination injury surveillance (SPEx) system (b) to evaluate the proportion of injuries and injury consequences reported by SPEx when compared to outcomes from a modified version of the Oslo Sports Trauma Research Centre (OSTRC) Overuse Injury Questionnaire. We followed 679 elite adolescent handball players over 31 weeks using the SPEx system. During the last 7 weeks, we also implemented a modified OSTRC questionnaire in a subgroup of 271 players via telephone interviews. The weekly response proportions to the primary SPEx questions ranged from 85% to 96% (mean 92%). SMS responses were received from 79% of the participants within 1 day. 95% of reported injuries were classified through the telephone interview within a week, and 67% were diagnosed by medical personnel. Comparisons between reported injuries from SPEx and OSTRC demonstrated fair (κ = 39.5% [25.1%-54.0%]) to substantial prevalence-adjusted bias-adjusted kappa (PABAK = 66.8% [95% CI 58.0%-75.6%]) agreement. The average injury severity score difference between SPEx and the OSTRC approach was -0.2 (95% CI -3.69-3.29) of possible 100 with 95% limits of agreement from(-14.81-14.41). These results support the feasibility and validity of the SPEx injury surveillance system in elite youth sport. Future studies should evaluate the external validity of SPEx system in different cohorts of athletes.

Injury reporting via SMS text messaging and online survey in community sport: A feasibility study

“…Furthermore, the number of questions asked in the current study (SMS = 2, online survey = 11) was higher than other SMS reported studies. Despite Møller et al recently reporting high compliance to seven SMS messaging questions (96%‐100%), the additional questions in this study together with the differences in the level of prompting (telephone call versus SMS messaging) may have contributed to the lower number of complete of injury records obtained in the current study. Therefore, further development and refinement of the protocol is recommended to determine the optimal number of SMS and online survey questions and additional online survey prompts required.…”

“…Currently, there is no consensus on the best method for injury surveillance in community sporting populations. The automated method of injury surveillance presented in this study (SMS text messaging and online survey) is an extension of the mixed methods used in previous research; automated SMS messaging with manual follow‐up of injury details by telephone . The method was found to be a feasible and convenient mode of injury surveillance in community sport, with consistent response rates, fast response times, and a moderate to high level of online survey completion.…”

“…The rapid response time for SMS messaging and online survey suggests that the participants’ recall of the injury event was high, which would allow for accurate and precise information to be collected by the online survey. This highlights the efficiency of such an automated method, particularly as it required only 2 minutes, on average, for participants to complete, compared with a 10‐minute follow‐up telephone data collection . The rapid response time also enables “real‐time” data to be collected, which has the potential for coaches and medical staff to manipulate variables within training and competition to minimize injury risk on a day‐to‐day basis (eg, training/ playing load levels).…”

“…Although telephone calls and emails enabled a high level of completeness of injury records (92%‐95%), these methods were labor intensive with each telephone interview requiring approximately 10 minutes per new injury . Follow‐up telephone calls have also been found to have variable response rates . A recent injury surveillance study showed that only 66% of the first telephone calls were answered …”

“…Follow‐up telephone calls have also been found to have variable response rates . A recent injury surveillance study showed that only 66% of the first telephone calls were answered …”