Injuries sustained by male football players in a South African academy league: epidemiology and methodological appraisal of two surveillance approaches in a lower-resourced club environment.

OBJECTIVES

To describe injuries sustained by South African male academy players and explore self-reporting for capturing health problems in a lower-resourced environment.

DESIGN

Prospective cohort study.

METHODS

Male players (n = 109) between 10 and 18 years were recruited from two clubs competing in a high-performance academy league in the Western Cape, South Africa. Medical attention injuries were documented by volunteer physicians through weekly field-side clinics, following IOC (International Olympic Committee) consensus guidelines. Additional data were collected by player self-reporting in a subset of teams (n = 38 players; U16 and U18) using the Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center Questionnaire on Health Problems (OSTRC-H2) to describe the prevalence of health problems (injuries and illnesses) and compare injuries captured by the two methods.

RESULTS

The overall incidence was 0.88 injuries per 365 player-days (95 % CI: 0.65 to 1.15), with a higher incidence in older age groups. The knee (21 %), head (14 %) and groin (14 %) were the most injured body parts, whilst bone contusions (19 %), physis injuries (15 %) and muscle injuries (14 %) were the most common pathology types. In the subset of teams using player-surveys, the average weekly prevalence of health problems was 10.8 % (95 % CI: 8.0 to 13.5). When comparing the two methods, 37 % of injuries were only captured by the field-side clinic, 29 % only by player surveys, and 34 % by both.

CONCLUSIONS

We provide novel data on injuries sustained by South African male academy players, with bone and muscle injuries being the main concerns. We further highlight the complementary nature of player self-reporting in a lower-resourced football setting.