13 January 2022

Research project to prevent injuries in women's football

Research

New research project will help football players prevent injuries. Primarily, the focus will be on female elite football players, many of whom are plagued by career-threatening injuries.

A new research project will focus on the dissemination and implementation of injury-prevention training in Danish football. The project is anchored at Department of Biomedical Sciences with researcher Elisabeth Bandak from Exercise Laboratories as project manager.

The overall purpose of the project is to implement injury prevention training in football in Denmark in order to reduce the number of injuries for the benefit of the individual's physical and mental health with reduced socio-economic costs as a result.

The project is a part of the ‘Prevent, Perform, and Improve’ project which is a collaboration between DBU, the Danish Society of Sports Physical Therapy, The Parker Institute, Bispebjerg-Frederiksberg Hospital. The project leaders are Professor Mette K. Zebis, Copenhagen University College, Bispebjerg-Frederiksberg Hospital, and the University of Copenhagen, and Professor Kristian Thorborg, Amager-Hvidovre Hospital, IOC Research Center, Copenhagen, and the University of Copenhagen.

The following sub-projects will begin in girl/woman elite football:

  • Phase 1:
    Purpose: Mapping of the current practice for injury prevention and performance boosting physical training in Danish girl/woman elite football.
    Method: Coaches and physical trainers in Danish girl/woman elite football are invited to participate in an online survey.
  • Phase 2:
    Purpose: Identification of barriers and facilitators for the implementation of injury prevention training in Danish girl/woman elite football through involvement of practice.
    Method: Coaches and physical trainers who have participated in phase 1 will be invited to online workshops.

Financial support has been received from the Danish Society of Sports Physical Therapy, The Association of Danish Physiotherapists, and Ministry of Culture's Research Funds (Kulturministeriets Forskningsmidler).

The project will initially run until 2023. Distribution and follow-up on surveys to coaches and physical trainers is expected in the first half of 2022. Subsequent workshops are expected to be initiated at the end of 2022 and at the beginning of 2023. Results from the project will be published on an ongoing basis to form the basis for the development of future recommendations for the implementation of evidence-based injury prevention, physical training and performance boost as part of the ‘Prevent, Perform, and Improve’ project in collaboration with football environments in Denmark.

You can follow the project on Twitter