Australian Football League concussion guidelines: what do community players think?

Background: Preventing concussion in sport is a global challenge. To assess community-level adult male Australian Football players' views on following the Australian Football League's (AFL) concussion guidelines.

Methods: 3 focus groups, each comprising 6 players from 1 regional league, were conducted until saturation of issues raised.

Concussion guideline implementation perceptions and experiences among parents of community-level Australian Football junior players.

Background/aim: Concussion guidelines exist for multiple community sports. Parents are key stakeholders in guideline implementation and in appropriate responses following concussive injury. The purpose of this qualitative investigation was to understand how parents of community-level Australian Football (AF) players experience and perceive concussion guidelines in order to inform the design and implementation of concussion guidelines in community sport.

Implementation of concussion guidelines in community Australian Football and Rugby League-The experiences and challenges faced by coaches and sports trainers.

Objectives: While guidelines outlining the appropriate management of sport-related concussion have been developed and adapted for use within community sport, it remains unknown how they are experienced by those responsible for implementing them.

Design: Longitudinal study.

Methods: 111 coaches and sports trainers from community-level Australian Football and Rugby League teams completed pre- and post-season surveys assessing their attitudes towards using concussion guidelines.

Intention to use sport concussion guidelines among community-level coaches and sports trainers.

Objectives: Sporting bodies have developed guidelines for managing community-level players with suspected concussion in response to international consensus statements on concussion in sport. The purpose of this study was to examine the factors that influence the intended use of concussion guidelines among community-level coaches and sports trainers from two popular football codes in Australia: Australian football and rugby league.

Design: Cross-sectional survey.

Independent appraiser assessment of the quality, methodological rigour and transparency of the development of the 2008 international consensus statement on concussion in sport.

Aim: In recent years, considerable effort has been devoted to the development and revisions to an international consensus statement on concussion in sport (ICSCS). The aim of this study was to obtain expert views on the methodological rigour and transparency with which the 2008 ICSCS was developed, as a precursor to the development of the 2012 update.

Methods: Delegates registered for the 2012 fourth International Conference on Concussion in Sport, selected local concussion researchers not involved in any prior international consensus meetings, and all authors of the 2008 ICSCS published paper were invited to assess the methodological rigour and transparency with which the 2008 ICSCS was developed.

What do community football players think about different exercise-training programmes? Implications for the delivery of lower limb injury prevention programmes.

Background: Players are the targeted end-users and beneficiaries of exercise-training programmes implemented during coach-led training sessions, and the success of programmes depends upon their active participation. Two variants of an exercise-training programme were incorporated into the regular training schedules of 40 community Australian Football teams, over two seasons. One variant replicated common training practices, while the second was an evidence-based programme to alter biomechanical and neuromuscular factors related to risk of knee injuries.

Knowledge about sports-related concussion: is the message getting through to coaches and trainers?

Aim: The need for accurate diagnosis and appropriate return-to-play decisions following a concussion in sports has prompted the dissemination of guidelines to assist managing this condition. This study aimed to assess whether key messages within these guidelines are reflected in the knowledge of coaches and sports trainers involved in community sport.

Methods: An online knowledge survey was widely promoted across Australia in May-August 2012 targeting community Australian Football (AF) and Rugby League (RL) coaches and sports trainers.

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

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.

Encouraging junior community netball players to learn correct safe landing technique.

Objective: Behavioural factors and beliefs are important determinants of the adoption of sports injury interventions. This study aimed to understand behavioural factors associated with junior community netball players' intentions to learn correct landing technique during coach-led training sessions, proposed as a means of reducing their risk of lower limb injury.

Design: Cross-sectional survey.

Injury risk associated with ground hardness in junior cricket.

Objectives: To establish if there is an association between ground hardness and injury risk in junior cricket.

Design: Nested case-series of players who played matches on specific grounds with objective ground hardness measures, within a prospective cohort study of junior community club cricket players.

Methods: Monitoring of injuries and playing exposure occurred during 434 matches over the 2007/2008 playing season.

Measuring children's self-reported sport participation, risk perception and injury history: development and validation of a survey instrument.

Despite the health benefits associated with children's sport participation, the occurrence of injury in this context is common. The extent to which sport injuries impact children's ongoing involvement in sport is largely unknown. Surveys have been shown to be useful for collecting children's injury and sport participation data; however, there are currently no published instruments which investigate the impact of injury on children's sport participation.

Understanding perceptions of injury risk associated with playing junior cricket.

Preventing sports injuries in children is important, but there is limited information about children's perceptions of injury risk or their injury beliefs and attitudes. This study investigated injury risk perceptions in a sample of junior sports participants across different age levels of play. Junior cricket players (n=284, aged 8-16) completed a survey about their injury risk perceptions.