The awareness of injury prevention programmes is insufficient among French- and German-speaking sports medicine communities in Europe

Abstract

Purpose Evaluate the current state of sports injury prevention perception, knowledge and practice among sports medicine professionals located in Western Europe and involved in injury prevention. Methods Members of two diferent sports medicine organizations (GOTS and ReFORM) were invited to complete a webbased questionnaire (in German and in French, respectively) addressing perception, knowledge and implementation of sports injury prevention through 22 questions.Results 766 participants from a dozen of countries completed the survey. Among them, 43% were surgeons, 23% sport physicians and 18% physiotherapists working mainly in France (38%), Germany (23%) and Belgium (10%). The sample rated the importance of injury prevention as "high" or "very high" in a majority of cases (91%), but only 54% reported to be aware of speciic injury prevention programmes. The French-speaking world was characterized by lower levels of reported knowledge, unfamiliarity with existing prevention programmes and less weekly time spent on prevention as compared to their German-speaking counterparts. Injury prevention barriers reported by the respondents included mainly insuicient expertise, absence of staf support from sports organizations and lack of time. Conclusion There is a lack of awareness regarding injury prevention concepts among sports medicine professionals of the European French-and German-speaking world. This gap varied according to the professional occupation and working country. Relevant future paths for improvement include speciic eforts to build awareness around sports injury prevention. Level of evidence Level IV.

Sport‐specific differences in ACL injury, treatment and return to sports

“…Although this has enabled researchers and clinicians to develop specific injury prevention strategies, such data are not available for a majority of sports. Likewise, injury prevention programs are difficult to promote and implement on a systematic basis in the medical and scientific sports worlds, mainly due to practical reasons [26].…”