Epidemiology of injuries in professional football: A systematic review and meta-analysis

López-Valenciano, Alejandro, Ruiz-Pérez, Iñaki, García-Gómez, A, Vera-García, Francisco J, De Ste Croix, Mark B ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9911-4355, Myer, Gregory D and Ayala, Francisco ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2210-7389 (2020) Epidemiology of injuries in professional football: A systematic review and meta-analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 54 (12). pp. 711-719. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2018-099577

	Text (Supplementary appendix 1 PRISMA checklist) Appendix 1. PRISMA Checklist..doc - Accepted Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 4.0. Download (60kB)
	Text (Supplementary appendix 2 Injury definitions) Appendix 2. Injury_definitions.docx - Accepted Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 4.0. Download (16kB)
	Text (Supplementary appendix 3 Moderator variables coded) Appendix 3. Moderator_variables_codded.docx - Accepted Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 4.0. Download (15kB)
	Text (Supplementary appendix 4 Description of the 8 criteria designed to assess risk of bias of external validity quality in the studiesT. This instrument is an adapted version of the Newcastle Ottawa Scale (NOS) for cohort studies) Appendix 4. Description of the adapted NOS scale.docx - Accepted Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 4.0. Download (17kB)
	Text (Supplementary appendix 5 Characteristics of the studies included in the meta-analysis) Appendix 5. Characteristics of the studies selected.docx - Accepted Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 4.0. Download (30kB)
	Text (Supplementary appendix 6 Analysis of the selected studies’ methodological quality - STROBE) Appendix 6. Analysis of the selected studies’ methodological quality -STROBE.docx - Accepted Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 4.0. Download (32kB)
	Text (Supplementary appendix 7. Risk of bias assessment of the studies (Newcastle-Ottawa scale)) Appendix 7. Risk_of_bias_assessment_NOS_scale.docx - Accepted Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 4.0. Download (28kB)
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Preview	Text (Peer reviewed version) 6881 De Ste Croix (2019) Epidemiology-of-injuries-in-professional-football.pdf - Accepted Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 4.0. Download (795kB) | Preview

Abstract

Objective: We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of epidemiological data of injuries in professional male football. Method: Forty-four studies have reported the incidence of injuries in football. Two reviewers independently extracted data and assessed trial quality using the STROBE statement and Newcastle Ottawa Scale. Studies were combined in a pooled analysis using a Poisson random effects regression model. Results: The overall incidence of injuries in professional male football players was 8.1 injuries/1000 hours of exposure. Match injury incidence (36 injuries/1000 hours of exposure was almost ten times higher than training injury incidence rate (3.7 injuries/1000 hours of exposure). Lower extremity injuries had the highest incidence rates (6.8 injuries/1000 hours of exposure). The most common type of injury was muscle/tendon (4.6 injuries/1000 hours of exposure), which were frequently associated with traumatic incidents. Minor injuries (1-3 days of time loss) were the most common. The incidence rate of injuries in the top 5 European professional leagues was not different to that of the professional leagues in other countries (6.8 vs. 7.6 injuries/1000 hours of exposure, respectively). Conclusions: Professional male football players have a substantial risk of sustaining injuries, especially during matches.

Item Type:	Article
Article Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Injury; Football; Prevention
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation Leisure > GV557 Sports > GV861 Ball games: Baseball, football, golf, etc. R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC1200 Sports Medicine
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Education and Science
Research Priority Areas:	Health, Life Sciences, Sport and Wellbeing
Depositing User:	Susan Turner
Date Deposited:	12 Jun 2019 15:06
Last Modified:	13 Feb 2025 13:45
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/6881

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