Effects of physical, psychosocial and dual-career loads on injuries and illnesses among elite handball players: protocol of prospective cohort study

Abstract

IntroductionHealth problems in sport cause a major burden on several pillars: sport clubs, health and insurance system and mostly the individual athlete. There is limited knowledge in supporting dual-career athletes firmed on evidence-based research in injury/illness prevention, load and stress management. The main goal of this research approach is to determine how specific physical, psychosocial and dual-career loads affect the occurrence of injuries and illnesses in elite handball players and how much of a variation in the athlete’s load leads to an occurrence of an injury/illness. A secondary aim is to determine the association between objective and subjective measures of stress as well as examine the benefits of certain biomarkers to monitor stress, load and injury/illness occurrence in athletes.Methods and analysisThis prospective cohort study, as part of a PhD project, will be carried out on 200 elite handball players of first men's handball league in Slovenia during an entire handball season, lasting from July 2022 to June 2023. Primary outcomes, including health problems, loads and stress, will be assessed weekly on a player level. Other player-related outcomes will include anthropometry, life event survey and blood biomarkers (cortisol, free testosterone and Ig-A), which will be taken three to five times across the observation period according to the players’ training cycle.Ethics and disseminationThe project was approved by the National Medical Ethics Committee of Slovenia (number: 0120-109/2022/3) and will be conducted in compliance with the most recent version of Helsinki Declaration. The study results will be published as peer-reviewed articles, congress presentations and as a Doctoral thesis. The results will not only be of importance for the medical and sports community for development of new injury prevention and rehabilitation strategies but also for structuring the correct policy recommendations for athletes’ general health.Trial registration numberNCT0547129.

Sport and academic engagement of 1,387 Slovenian dual-career athletes before and during COVID-19 lockdown—what did we learn?

“…The pandemic had a significant impact on mental health, and athletes were no exception (Mehrsafar et al, 2021;Jia et al, 2022). DC athletes may be particularly vulnerable to psychological effects of the pandemic due to the added stressors of their dual careers (Drole et al, 2023). Understanding their responses to the pandemic can help identify risk factors for mental health issues and inform interventions to support their well-being.…”

Investigation of social capital, empathy and individual responsibility parameters in dual career athletes: an exploratory study

“…Empathy, individual responsibility and social capital, as three different concepts and behavior regulation factors, are the elements that will facilitate the life of the individual, and affect the attitudes towards life, such as communication skills, self-confidence, punctuality, tolerance and so on [31,32]. However, social capital, which is one of the capital types defined by the literature, which characterize social life and ensures its continuation with harmony, includes the elements of empathy and responsibility [33,34]. It is argued that empathy and responsibility, which are of high importance in the sports environment, are a necessity in the success-oriented work of competitive athletes [35].…”